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MEMORIAL 



OF 



STEPHEN SALISBURY 



OF 



WORCESTER, MASS 



St^^^«^^^^-1 



WORCESTER : 

PRESS OF CHARLES HAMILTON, 

1885. 



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CONTENTS. 



Introductory Note v 

Biographical Notice 9 

Compiled from "Worcester Daily Spy — Worcester Evenino- Gazette. 

Notices by the Worcester Press 15 

Daily Spy — Evening Gazette — Le Travailleur — Le Courrier. 

Notices of the Funeral 25 

Worcester Daily Spy — Worcester Evening Gazette. 

Erom Yucatan Newspapers 29 

La Eevista de Merida — El Eco del Comercio. 

Proceedings of Societies, &c 37 

American Antiquarian Society — Massachusetts Historical Society 
— New England Historic Genealogical Society — Faculty Wor- 
cester County Free Institute — Worcester National Bank — 
Free Public Library — Directors W., N. & E. R. R. Co.— 
Worcester Light Infantry— Trustees Worcester County Free 
Institute — Worcester County Horticultural Society — Worcester 
Society of Antiquity — Stockholders W., N. & R. R. R. Co.— 
Worcester Fire Society. 

Sermon by Rev. A. P. Peabody, D.D 79 

Eulogy by Rev. A. P. Peabody, D.D 89 

Memoir by Hon. John D. Washburn 115 

Proceedings of other Institutions 1 33 

Peabody Museum — Alumni Worcester County Free Institute — 
From Address of Hon. P. Emory Aldrich. 

Extracts from Private Letters 145 

Letter of Hon. George Bancroft — Brief Expressions from other 
writers. 
Chronological Table 159 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



Hoping that the memorial eulogies, resolutions, notices 
and other tributes to the memory of my father, Stephen 
Salisbury, as they have deeply touched me by their 
sympathetic and appreciative tone, will also be of interest 
to his friends and awaken in some minds a responsive 
feeling of kindly remembrance, I have collated them for 
publication in a compact form. 

Companions of my father's youth have told me that he 
was from the first of a serious and sober temperament, 
and in school and college studious and orderly. As a 
young man he was not robust, but strict regularity in 
liv^ing and an active and laborious use of his time 
strengthened his constitution, so that he enjoyed more 
than fifty years of almost uninterrupted health. 

From the force of circumstances and from a natural 
predisposition, he became year by year more and more 
devoted to labor and study, and at no time that can be 
remembered was his industry other than noticeable. From 
early morning until late into the night he was at work 
upon matters of interest to himself or others. He seemed 
little subject to fatigue of body or mind, rarely was 
affected by the extremes of heat or cold, and would not 
urge physical weakness as an excuse for the postpone- 
ment of any duty. He was painstaking and exact in 



VI Introductory Note. 

meeting responsibilities, and preferred to do his full share 
of work rather than to impose troul)le upon others. He 
was always cheerful, very seldom betrayed into passionate 
feeling, and never into passionate expression. 

He was accessible to those Avho desired to meet him, 
even when he knew that interviews would be annoying 
and wearisome ; and believing firmly in the nobleness of 
human nature, treated every one with whom he was 
brought in contact with respectful consideration. 

In business matters he was quick in his decisions, and 
having once adopted a course of action never worried 
himself by vain regrets that he had not done otherwise, but 
occupied himself with the present aspect of the situation. 
Although very attentive to the minor details of the sul)ject 
in hand, he did not disregard its broader bearings ; and 
rarely found himself too busy or pre-occupied to undertake 
the consideration of new })ropositions, attention to which 
was not postponed to a more convenient time, l)ut accorded 
at once and without delay. 

The religious element was largely developed in my 
father's character. He enjoyed the regular attendance on 
religious services, and, while a Unitarian in belief, found 
pleasure and profit in listening to the discourses of clergy- 
men of widely difiering opinions, thinking that good, 
religious men are to be found in all denominations and 
desiring to learn their views on serious subjects. As a 
reader he most enjoyed what is called classical literature, 
whether in English or the ancient languages. The Bible 



Introductory Note. ^ vii 

was made a study, and while he followed with interest 
controversies over the interpretation of passages, he 
thought verbal criticisms of texts of little importance, 
since the Word comes to us in earthen vessels and is for 
that reason liable to imperfections. He believed that no 
man could honestly study the Bible without benefit, and 
his knowledge of that Book was the result of almost 
daily reading and reflection upon its contents. Whatever 
he regarded as a duty it was his flrst effort to accomplish, 
and he seldom considered whether the obligation it imposed 
on him was agreeable or not in its performance. 

That my father lived a sincere and earnest life, and 
endeavored faithfully to discharge all obligations to his 
fellow-men that reason and conscience prescribed to him, 
is the conviction of an only son, his sole constant com- 
panion for more than thirty years. During his last sick- 
ness of over seven weeks, my father was called upon to 
bear much bodily suffering; in that period of trial, as in a 
preceding critical illness, he regarded the near approach of 
death with calmness, and, disturbed by no recollections 
of unfinished labors, expressed entire readiness to be 
relieved from longer service. 

S. 
Worcester, August, 1885. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 



COMPILED FROM THE WORCESTER DAILY SPY AND 
THE EVENING GAZETTE. 



OTEPHEN SALISBURY was born at the old Salisbury 
mansion in Lincoln Square, Worcester, Mass., March 
8th, 1798. 

His father, also named Stephen, was son of Nicholas and 
Martha Salisbury, of Boston ; he came to Worcester in 
1767, and in 1770 erected the mansion above alluded to, 
where he resided till his death, May 11, 1829, aged eighty- 
three years. 

The subject of this notice obtained the first rudiments of 
his education at the old Central District school-house, 
prepared for college at Leicester Academy, and was 
graduated at Harvard University in 1817, in the same class 
with George B. Emerson, Hon. George Bancroft, Hon. 
Caleb Cushing, Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, Rev. Samuel J. 
May, Rev. Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, Prof. Alva Woods, and 
others. He studied law with Hon. Samuel M. Burnside 
in this city, and was admitted to the bar, but never entered 
into the practice of his profession, as his property interests 
demanded much time and attention. Among civil offices he 
has filled are those of selectman in 1839, representative in 
the General Court in 1838 and 1839, senator in 1846 and 
1847, and alderman the first year of the city oroanization in 



10 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

1848. Among his numerous financial trusts he was Presi- 
dent of the old Worcester Bank for thirty-nine years, from 
the decease of Hon. Daniel Waldo in July, 1845, and was 
fifty-two years a Director, being first elected October 1, 
1832. He also succeeded Mr. Waldo as President of 
the Worcester County Institution for Savings, and filled 
that position twenty-five years till April, 1871, when 
he resigned, and was succeeded by Hon. Alexander H. 
Bullock. He was a Director of the Worcester and Nashua 
Railroad Company from its first organization in 1845, and 
also of the Boston, Barre and Gardner Railroad Corpora- 
tion, and was President of the Worcester and Nashua from 
March, 1850, to February 3, 1851, when he resigned the 
presidency, though he continued his interest as director. 
He was a member of the American Antiquarian Society 
from October, 1840; member of the Council from October, 
1843 ; was elected Vice-President of the society in Octo- 
ber, 1853, and President in October, 1854, to succeed 
Gov. John Davis, and has presided over that institution 
with distinguished grace and al)ility for thirty years. Mr. 
Salisbury was the third President of the Worcester Free 
Public Library and was one of the original Directors. He 
served as President on two occasions, from 1863 to 1865 
inclusive, and 1868 to 1872 inclusive. He was always a 
warm friend of the library, active in his services and gener- 
ous with gifts. AVhen the reading-room was inaugurated, 
he headed the fund with the generous subscription of four 
thousand dollars. As President of the Antiquarian Society 
he was a Trustee of the Peabody Museum of Archeology at 
Cambridge, and he was also a meuiljer of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society. The degree of LL.D. was conferred 



Biographical Notice. 11 

on him by Harvard in 187«r, and he was Overseer of the 
College for two full terms, from 1871 to 1883. He was 
Presidential Elector in 1860 and again in 1872. He was 
very prominently identified with the Worcester Free Insti- 
tute, was President of its Board of Trustees from the date 
of incorporation, gave the land on which the buildings 
stand, and has from time to time aided the instituti(m with 
his wealth freely expended. The Graduates' Aid Fund 
of ten thousand dollars was the gift of Mr. Salisbury. The 
school is but one of the many local institutions which are 
indebted to his generosity. Mr. Salisbury always attended 
the Second Parish (Unitarian) Church, of which he was a 
member, and took a great interest in its affairs. He was a 
model gentleman in his personal intercourse, always courte- 
ous and genial in his manners, a well-read scholar, deeply 
versed in historical and antiquarian lore, and a hard-work- 
ing and methodical man in his attention to his business 
affairs, as well as literary matters. Each returning 
anniversary-meeting of the American Antiquarian Society 
and Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science, 
in which he took such an abiding interest, always found 
him at his post as presiding officer ; and long will the 
officers and members of those institutions remember the 
easy grace with which he performed his duties, and the 
munificent liberality with which he dispensed his benefac- 
tions to support them. Mr. Salisbury was three times 
married. His first wife, whom he married November 7, 
1833, was Rebekah Scott, daughter of Aaron and Phila 
Dean, of Charlestown, New Hampshire, who died eluly 
24, 1843, leaving as their only child Stephen Salisbury, Jr. 
He next married Nancy Hoard, widow of Capt. George 



12 Memorial of Stephen Salishm-y. 

Lincoln, who died September 4, 1852. His last wife, who 
died September 25, 18 64, was Mary Grosvenor, widow of 
Hon. Edward D. Bangs, for many years Secretary of 
State for Massachusetts, Mr. Salisbury's mother was a 
daughter of Edward Tuckerman of Boston. An aunt, his 
father's sister, married the first Daniel Waldo. Mr. Salis- 
bury built the block opposite the Court House in 1833, and 
lived there several years after his first marriage. The 
house on Highland street he built in 1837. His father's 
ancient mansion at Lincoln Square, in which he was born, 
l)iesents to-day nearly the same substantial appearance it 
did over a century ago, when it was the home of one of 
Worcester's staunchest and most trustworthy and active 
patriots of the revolutionary time. 

\i\ his long and active life he has ))een closely identified 
with the administration of many financial institutions in 
Worcester, and his service was always careful and able, 
and his judgment and action have always l^een wise and 
discreet. 

Of late years he has done much to develop the northerly 
end of the city, but he was conservative in the management 
of his real estate interests and was wisely patient in enter- 
prises of this class. He had a strong interest in the 
industrial character of the city, and was always ready to 
furnish buildings for mechanical pursuits, when the pros- 
pect of success commended itself to his judgment. He 
has never been ostentatious, ])ut in his connection in 
financial and educational interests, with ])uilding enter- 
prises, with public oflScial life, and in the exercise of the 
broad and judicious benevolence which has always marked 
his life, he has ever been the quiet, dignified, courteous 



Biographical Notice. 13 

and considerate gentleman, a type of the "old school," 
and a model of which the present generation sees too few 
imitators. 

His death was not a surprise, for his advanced age and 
the gradual breaking down of his health have indicated for 
many months that the end was steadily approaching. In 
March last he had an ill turn and many of his friends then 
anticipated a fatal result, but his natural vigor of constitu- 
tion threw off disease and he recovered so as to be able to 
attend to business and to ride about the city. He was also 
able to attend a meeting of the Trustees of the Peabody 
Museum, at Cambridge, in the latter part of June. Since 
then he has failed gradually, and he has been confined to 
his room for several weeks. Until within a few days he 
was able to leave his bed for meals, and his clearness and 
cheerfulness of mind and his interest in business encouraged 
the hope that he might get about again. But his failing- 
condition continued with gradually increasing weakness, 
until the end. 



NOTICES BY THE WORCESTER PRESS. 



From the Worcester Daily Spy of August 25, 1884. 



BY J. EVARTS GREENE. 



In the death of Mr. Salisbury, Worcester loses one who for 
many years has been her foremost citizen. A few there 
have been whose names were familiar to a larger public, 
but none who, among his townsmen and neighbors, was so 
universally respected or so often consulted ; whose aid was 
considered so valuable in doubtful matters, or was so confi- 
dently anticipated in the case of any useful or benevolent 
undertaking. In his boyhood Worcester was a rural 
village, its inhabitants mostly farmers, with a few traders 
and mechanics and professional men, whose learning and 
eminence gave the town what distinction it then had. He 
had seen it grow from these small beginnings to a city of 
seventy thousand inhabitants, maintaining still its early 
reputation for producing or attracting men who take 
commanding positions in professional or public life, but 
more noted now for the diversity of its industries, for the 
skill of its mechanics, and the excellence of their products, 
and for the new ideas and methods in educational matters 
which have had their origin here. In promoting and 
directing this healthy diversified growth no man had a 
larger or more salutary influence than Mr. Salisbury. No 
one so well represented the various forces which combined 
to give character to the growing town. He was of the old 
families, the early land-owners, like the Lincolns, Paines 



18 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

and Waldos, which had always some members whose 
talents and weight of character, as well as their wealth, 
gave them a great local influence. His membership of the 
])ar, though he did not practice, associated him more closely 
with the eminent men of that profession of whom Worces- 
ter has always had many. As a capitalist and a man of 
great sagacity he could encourage the establishment of new 
industries, and aid in developing those railroad enterprises 
which were so essential to the expansion of the city. If 
he did not lay the foundations of many of our financial 
institutions, he did much to give them their present form 
and character. As a scholar he was interested in institu- 
tions of learning, and aided them l)oth pecuniarily and with 
his counsels. Institutions so diverse in character as the 
American Antiquarian Society and the Worcester County 
Free Institute of Industrial Science had equal favor from 
him. He was president of each, and to the last days of 
his life his presidency was an actual su})ervision of their 
concerns rendered with strict fidelity, and an active, zeal- 
ous interest which never wearied. 

Mr. Salisbury's character commanded respect always. 
He was wise, — few men more so ; he was just and faithful ; 
he never raised expectations which he did not satisfy. He 
was generous ; his gifts to public objects were munificent, 
and his private benefactions many. But he did not give 
as some rich men do, to escape the annoyance of solicita- 
tion. He gave not even small sums without positive 
approval of the object, and could say "No" with inflexible 
decision when asked to aid a purpose which he thought 
unworthy. His mind was enlarged by travel in early life, 
and even in his age he was open to new impressions, as the 



JVbtices hy the Worcester Press. 19 

interest awakened by his visit to California a few years ago 
plainly showed. His scholarship was accurate, thorough 
and comprehensive. He loved good books, and he loved 
knowledge ; the new discoveries and applications of science 
as well as the learning of archa3ology and history. His 
literary taste was severe, and his addresses and other 
published papers were models of a stately and dignified 
style. Mr. Salisbury lived to a great age. His physical 
powers failed somewhat in his last years, but his mind was 
as clear and active, as sure in its processes, and as sound 
in its conclusions as ever. He seemed, indeed, to those 
who knew him well, not only to have no mental infirmities, 
but to maintain an actual g-rowth to the last. 



From the Worcester Evening Gazette of August 25, 1884. 



BY CHARLES H. DOE. 



We are pained to announce the death of the Hon. Stephen 
Salisbury, which occurred yesterday evening at his resi- 
dence in this city. The event will not have the shock of 
suddenness, for it has been for some time evident that his 
wonderfully vigorous constitution Avas yielding to his 
accumulation of years, but the news of his death will be 
received with sincere sorrow in this community, in which 
he has passed his long and useful life, and with regret at 
least in other cities where he was known and respected. 



20 Memorial of Stephen Salishury. 

Mr. Salisbury has been for some time in indifferent health 
and had already recovered from one or two attacks which 
would have been fatal to a weaker man. Those around 
him felt it their duty to place his condition in the most 
favorable light, in his presence, but he was never deceived 
about his condition, and met death with that cheerful 
courage and Christian serenity which formed so largely the 
basis of his character. Not many days ago, he said to a 
friend, "If I had gained as rapidly as some people would 
make me believe, I should have become by this time a 
giant," This remark illustrates the sunlight of gentle 
humor which was always in Mr. Salisbury's conversation, 
playing through the dry, wearisome, and sometimes 
discouraging details of everyday life. 

It is difficult to realize that while Mr. Salisbury repre- 
sented the second generation of his family in this city, it 
was in the middle of the last century, namely, in 1767, that 
his father came to Worcester. The Salisburys have been 
a temperate, long-lived race, hardy, steadily sure, rarely 
deciding hastily, yet never too late, and withal honorable 
and fair in their dealings. The late Mr. Salisbury has 
always exercised a beneficent influence in the community, 
and this has been especially felt in the cause of education. 
In the Free Institute of Industrial Science he was especially 
interested. He had the sagacity to see the importance of 
technical training in a manufacturing centre, and he aided 
the institution, not only by wise counsel and constant 
watchfulness, but by some of the most liberal gifts ever 
received by any institution during the lifetime of the 
donor. His benefactions, too, were not confined to a 
single direction. He was prudent in spending, because he 



Notices by the Worcester Press. 21 

was simple in his tastes and came from a period when 
luxuries were few and the style of living utterly without 
pretension. He may not with his habits have had much 
sympathy with troubles born of unthrift, idleness, and 
self-indulgence, yet he was liberal and generous, though 
quite without ostentation, when occasion called and his 
duty was clear. For Mr. Salisbury had a most sturdy 
conscience, and his faithfulness to fulfil every public, 
social, or business claim upon him was one of the striking 
features of his sterling character. 

Mr. Salisbury remained a diligent student of the classics 
to the end of his life, and was especially prominent as 
an antiquary. His long connection with the American 
Antiquarian Society, to which he was also a large benefac- 
tor, was undoubtedly a real delight to him, and his 
industry in behalf of the society was unfailing. As a man 
of business, he was conservative, but sound in his judg- 
ments, and he was a leader in the management of some 
of the largest moneyed institutions of the city. Other 
positions in which he was prominent are elsewhere men- 
tioned in detail. 

During the later years of his life, Mr. Salisbury has 
appeared to his friends, who were many, and to the public, 
who were very generally familiar with his personality, as a 
handsome, active old gentleman, courtly but not stitHy 
formal in his manners, with such dignity as became him, 
though not of the stiff-backed sort; in fact, always kindly 
and good-humored, never inaccessible to anybody with the 
slightest demands on his time, always busy, but never 
hurried. No man in the city was better known, yet we 
have never heard any man speak ill of him. 



22 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

From Le Travailleur ( Worcester), August 26, 1884. 



FERD. GAGNON. 



DiMANCHE soir, a huit heurcs, s'eteignait, Ti I'age de 86 ans, 
Stephen Salisbury, un citoyen cles mieux connus et des plus 
respectes de notre ville. Ayant herite d'une fortune consi- 
derable, il I'augmenta encore beaucoup par d'lieureuses 
transactions. Quoiqu'il ait donne des centaines de mille 
dollars pour des ann res de bienfaisance et d'education, il 
restait certainenient le plus riche proprietaire de ce conite. 
II ctait le modele du bon citoyen, franc, integre et genereux. 
Worcester perd en M. Salisl)ury un citoyen qui sera vive- 
ment regrette du riche et du pauvre et dont le souvenir 
durera longtenips. II laisse un fils, M. Stephen Salisbury, 
jr., u qui nous ott'rons nos profondes condoleances. 



t\om the Courrier de Worcester, August 30, 1884. 



VICTOR I5ELANGER. 



La ville de Worcester vient de faire une perte vraiement 
sensible dans la personne de M. Stephen Salisbury, decede 
dans la soiree de dimanche dernier, dans la quatre-vingt- 
sixienie annee de son age. Le defunt etait un de ces hom- 
mes charitables que nous rencontrons rarement de nos jours, 
et qui passcnt en faisant le bien. M. Salisbury etait I'ami des 
atHiges ; toujours pret jiouvrir les cordons de sa l)ourse pour 
venir en aide, tantut a une veuve, tantot aux orphelins, ou 
aux institutions nationales et de charite. Les pauvres sur- 
tout perdent en lui un de leurs plus fervents protecteurs, et 
la ville de Worcester un de ses plus respectable citoyens. 



JVbtices by the Worcester Press. 23 

Depuis quelque teraps, la sante du defmit etait loin d'etre 
bonne, mais quiaurait pu prevoir si tot la fin de ce citoyen 
distingue. Comme tons les hommes, M. Salisbury avait suae 
dans les entrailles de sa mere un poison lent, avec lequel 
nous venons au nionde et qui finit toujours par le trepas. 
M. Salisbury etait ne a Worcester le 8 mars, 1798. II 
completa ses etudes au college Harvard, et plus tard il se 
livra a I'etude du droit civil. En 1838, il fut elu membre 
de la legislature de Boston, et en 1846, il devenait senateur 
de I'Etat. M. Salisbury a aussi ete president des princi- 
pales institutions financieres de la ville. II laisse pour 
pleurer sa perte un fils, M. Stephen Salisbury, et une foule 
de parents et d'amis. * * * 



NOTICES OF THE FUNERAL 



COMPILED FliOM THE WORCESTER DAILY SPY AND 
EVENING GAZETTE, OF AUGUST 29, 1884. 



The funeral services of the late Hon. Stephen Salisbury 
were held at the residence on Highland Street, yesterday 
afternoon, and were attended by a very large number of 
citizens, as well as by many distinguished men from other 
places. Mr. Salisbury's long career had brought him in 
contact with many, and the services accordingly drew 
together a very large assemblage, desirous of paying a last 
tribute of the esteem in which he was held. The floral 
tributes were few and simple, the request having been 
made that friends would refrain from sending such. A 
single cross of white roses and lilies, a wreath of ivy and a 
bunch of wheat, in keeping with the simplicity of the life 
just drawn to a close, were all. 

The following named gentlemen had charge of the 
funeral arrangements : Messrs. Francis B. Rice, Nathaniel 
Paine, Edward L. Davis, John M. Barker, John D. 
Washburn and Samuel S. Green. 

The pall-bearers were Messrs. H. W. Miller, F. H. 

Kinnicutt, David Whitcomb, P. Emory Aldrich, George 

F. Hoar and T. W. Hammond of this city, and Charles 

Deane, of Cambridge, and Samuel A. Green, of Boston. 
4 



26 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

Miss Rose Stewart, Mrs. W. E. Tarbell, and Messrs. 
Walter Kennedy and C. V. Mason, the quartette from the 
First Unitarian Church, which Mr. Salisbury had always 
attended, sang without accompaniment the hymn 

" I cau not always trace the way." 

Rev. Andrew P. Peabody, D.D., of Cambridge, then 
read appropriate Scripture selections, affirming faith in the 
resurrection and declaring the glories of the Heavenly City. 
The choir then sang 

" Abide with Me." 

Rev. George E. Ellis, D.D., of Charlestown, then made 
a ])rief but earnest address, speaking without preparation 
and with indications of deep feeling. He said "those who 
value Christianity and trust in its faith l)elieve, as did our 
beloved and dear friend, that all human experience is 
ordered by a divine and unerring wisdom. Among the 
human experiences for which we learn to thank a beneficent 
Providence is death, — a release from mortal life when the 
body becomes a burden. When the grain is mature we 
are willing that the stublde should perish. Certainly we 
may hold this cheerful faith when, as now, we contemplate 
the end of an honored life, lengthened beyond the limit, 
and well spent. His life was full not only of years but of 
well-performed duty. He had been exercised by some of 
the sharpest trials which beset human life, but he has borne 
all with submission. His grief never impaired his zest 
for useful labors and the continued and honored employ- 
ments of his life. All who knew him saw in him some- 
thing to respect and to love ; those who knew him longest 
found in him most to command their praise and respect. 



Notices of the Funeral. 27 

"We can not express to each other, or even to ourselves, 
the full estimate of this honored man. We know that he 
was resigned to the divine will. Experience and faith 
had taught him this. We know at the end of life he was 
willing to give up all which had made his existence 
pleasurable. He confidently anticipated a broader exist- 
ence beyond this life, and he was ready and willing to 
wait for that. We give him up to that divine will, and we 
shall cherish the memory of all his good example, and 
above all we shall be thankful for the best of his life-lesson, 
— his spotless and faithful career." 

An impressive prayer by the venerable Dr. Andrew P. 
Peabody, of Cambridge, closed the service. The clergy- 
men remained standing in the lower hall during the 
service, and the friends were seated in the parlors, library 
and hall. 

The Directors and attaches of the Worcester National 
Bank, and the faculty of the Worcester County Free Insti- 
tute of Industrial Science, were present ; and besides these 
the o;athering was one of the largest assemblies of men of 
note in this city seen here in a long time. 

Among those present were Hon. E. R. Hoar and Justin 
Winsor, representing Harvard University ; Edward I. 
Thomas, of Brookline ; Eev. E. E. Hale, D.D., of 
Boston ; Prof. Edward Salisbury, of New Haven ; Daniel 
Needham, of Groton ; Samuel E. Sewall, a classmate of 
Mr. Salisbmy ; Col. Ivers Phillips, of Colorado ; Eev. 
John H. Heywood, late of Louisville ; Eev. Henry F. 
Jenks, of Lawrence ; Hon. W. W. Eice, Hon. Peter C. 
Bacon, Hon. Clark Jillson, Hon. Charles G. Eeed, Hon. 
E. B. Stoddard, Hon. C. B. Pratt, Hon. George M. Eice, 



28 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

Col. A. George Bullock, Hon. T. C. Bates, Gen. William 
S. Lincoln, Edward W. Lincoln, Dr. Joseph Sargent, 
Dr. George E. Francis, Dr. Rufus Woodward, W. H. 
Jourdan, George Crompton, Rev. B. D. Marshall, Hon. 
Henry C. Kice, Sumner Pratt, William Dickinson, P. L. 
Moen, A. N. Currier, O. B. Hadwen, Rev. Spencer 
Bonnell, M. V. B. Jefferson, William Eames, Horatio 
Phelps, Albert Curtis, T. M. Rogers, A. G. Walker, 
J. H. Clark, James P. Hamilton, E. O. Parker, E. A. 
Goodnow, Alexander Marsh, Henry A. Marsh, Benj. 
Walker, Joseph Pratt, A. Tolman, George T. Rice, M. B. 
Green, and the instructors at the Free Institute. 

The interment was in the family lot at Rural Cemetery, 
and there Rev. Dr. Peal)ody recited the committal service 
of the E})isc()i)al Church, and offered a brief prayer. 

All the services were marked with simplicity, and were 
in harmony with the life and tastes of the honored dead. 
The })rcscnce at his funeral of those from all ranks in life, 
testified to the esteeni and respect in which he was held by 
the whole community. 



FROM YUCATAN NEWSPAPERS. 



LA REVISTA DE MERIDA. 

Yucatan, Setiembre 16 de 1884. 



La prensa de los Estados Unidos nos trajo hace pocos dias, 
la infausta noticia de la muerte del respetable caballero 
cuyo nombre va al frente de estas lineas, acaecida en 
Worcester, importante ciudad del Estado de Massachusetts, 
el dia 24 de Agosto ultimo. 

Las buenas relaciones de amistad que entre nosotros 
tenia el Sr. Salisbwy, asi como los notables beneficios que 
dispense a las ciencias e industria, no menos que por las 
simpatias que aqui disfruta su hijo, a quien se deben 
importantes trabajos en la ciencia arqueologica, especial- 
mente en lo que se refiere a Yucatan, son titulos bastantes, 
para que consagremos en nuestras columnas un recuerdo a 
la memoria de aquel distinguido ciudadano, amante de los 
progresos cientificos, enviando a su muy apreciable hijo 
el Sr. Stephen Salisbury (Jr.) la expresion de nuestra 
condolencia por la dolorosa perdida que acaba de sufrir. 



EL ECO DEL COMEECIO." 

Mirida de Yucatan, Setiembre 16 de 1884. 



Periodicos que hemos recibido de los Estados Unidos, 
nos anuncian la sentida muerte del Sr. Stephen Salisbury 



32 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

(Senior,) acaecida el 24- del mes pasado, en la ciudad de 
Wo7'ce.^ter, Mans. 

No es esta la primera vez que honramos las colunuias de 
nuestro periodico con el nonibre de este distinguido y 
respetable cahallero, que durante su larg-a vida tra])ajo en 
beneficio de sus conciudadanos y enipleo una buena parte 
de su gran fortuna en el adelanto de las ciencias, de la 
industria y de toda empresa de reconocida utilidad. 

Su noml)re ha llegado hasta nosotros, muy especialmente 
por ser el mismo (]uc lleva su hijo Stephen Salishury Jr., 
quien hace veintc y dos anos visito a Yucatan, y durante su 
residencia de algunos nieses, supo captarse las sinipatias y 
el carino de las personas que recibieron la distincion de su 
amistad. 

Desde entonces, el joven Salisbury, amigo y discipulo 
tambien de las ciencias, sobre todo, de las que se relacionan 
con la antigua historia de los aborigenes del Continente 
Americano, conservo entusiasta y carinosaraente sus rela- 
ciones con Yucatan, donde encontro un tesoro inagotable 
para la continuacion de sus estudios historicos y arqueolo- 
gicos. 

Frecuenteniente este digno y distinguido amigo, nos ha 
fiivorecido con ricas e interesantes publicaciones, sobre 
materias que guardan intima conneccion con la raza de los 
antiguos mayas. Estas obras son un adorno preferente de 
nuestras colecciones, y son otras tantas pruebas de la 
inteligencia del autor y de la amistad que nos profesa. 

A noml)re de esta, enviamos al Sr. Salisbury, hijo, 
nuestros mas expresivos sentimientos por la irreparable 
perdida que acaba de sufrir con la muerte de su respetable 
padre. Sean estos nuestros sentimientos, el eco del 



Notices hy the Yucatan Newspa^pers. 33 

verdadero carino que todos sus amigos de Yucatan le 
profesamos ; y si algo valen como un consuelo, acojalos 
con la misma sinceridad con que han brotado del fondo 
de nuestro corazon. 



P:L ECO DEL COMERCIO." 

M^rida de Yucatan, Setiemhre 20 de 1884. 



" EL HONORABLE STEPHEN SALISBURY." 

Con profunda pena tomamos la pluma para participar a 
Uds. el sensible fallecimiento del anciano respetable Sr. 
Stephen Salisbury, accaecido en su hermosa residencia de 
Highland StreH en la ciudad de Woixester, Estado de 
Massachusetts, el domingo 24 del actual a las 7 y 45 
minutos de la tarde. 

Gran numero de los periodicos de este pais se ocupan 
ya en detalles sobre la vida de tan ilustre personaje, como 
que casi toda ella fue consagrada al bienestar de sus 
semejantes, fundando con su peculio varios institutos de 
instruccion y caridad, y dotando con muniticencia a otros, 
como la "Biblioteca Publica" de su ciudad natal, la 
" Sociedad Anticuaria," el " Museo Peabody," de Cam- 
bridge y en cuyas Juntas Directivas ocupo los puestos 
mas prominentes, trabajando siempre con notable perseve- 
rancia en la conservacion y fomento de aquellos beneficos 
planteles, que seran otros tantos monumentos que conmemo- 
ren su nombre. 

Los Directores del "Banco Nacional de Worcester,^' Qn 
las breves pero expresivas frases que dedican a su venera- 
ble Presidente, como acuerdo especial que han dado a la 



34 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

Prensa, encomian su valiosa cooperacion como Director 
que fue do el en el increible espacioi de 52 anos ! siendo 40 
de ellos su Presidente, hasta el dia de su muerte. " /S'm 
jmesto serd reemplazado, — dicen al terminar dicho acuerdo, 
— pero Jamds el vacio inapreciable que deja entree nosotros." 

Pertenecio a la Iglesia Unitaria, cuyos miembros ban 
derramado ;i uianos llenas el bien entre sus semejaiites, 
siguiendo el noble ejemplo de sus predecesores, cuyo 
objcto principal siempre ba sido instruir a la juventud y 
socorrer al desvalido. 

Los que tuvimos la honra y la dicba de tratarlo con 
alguna intimidad, ya en el seno del bogar, ya en tertulias 
y paseos, y aun acompanandole algunos doniingos en el 
Templo, conservarrnios siempre muy gratos recuerdos de 
su bellisiino caracter. Por todas partes era objeto de las 
mayores atenciones, y para todos tenia una respuesta 
oportuna, casi siempre aconi panada con una sonrisa afable, 
de esas que brotan de un corazon sano y puro. En el 
hogar, en medio de esa opulencia <\ue sus recursos le 
pcrmitian, sin vana ostentacion, reinaban la paz y ese orden 
scvcro (|ue distingue a los descendientes de los Puritanos, 
Cjuienes al posar sus plantas en esta tierra, antes inculta 
y desierta, la ban convertido, en tan corto espacio de 
tiempo, en una nacion populosa y bien organizada. Los 
domt'sticos no parecian sino mieml)ros de su familia. 

Ratos muy agradables bemos pasado algunas nocbes de 
invierno en su magnitica biblioteca particular, y recordamos 
el interes con que nos pedia informes sol)re Mexico, cuyo 
porvenir le preocupaba. 

Vivio <SG alios, 5 meses y 16 dias, conservandose vigoroso 
liasta poeos meses antes de su fallecimiento ; cuando las 



JSTotices hy the Yucatan Newspapers. 35 

dolencias que habian de llevarle a la tumba, quebrantaron 
aquella privilegiada naturaleza, no asi su moral y conformi- 
dad cristiana, que lo acompaiiaron hasta sus ultimos 
momentos. 

Caso tres ocasiones, y le sobrevive el unico hijo habido 
en su primer matrimonio con la Sra. Rebekah Scott Dean, 
hijo que lleva el mismo nombre de su finado padre, disting- 
uido amigo nuestro, e interesado siempre en todo lo que 
concierne a esa nuestra querida patria, en cuyas Bibliotecas 
y Museos se registra su nombre, pues en varias ocasiones 
y por nuestro conducto, ha enviado a ellos obras valiosas. 

Sean pues, las lineas que anteceden, un humilde testi- 
monio de nuestro reconocimiento, que enviamos a la prensa, 
y para que tambien llegue a noticia de sus numerosos 
amigos de alli, esta nueva funesta que nos contrista el 
corazon. 

Andres Aznar Perez. 

Saratoga, JST. T., Agosto 27 de 1884. 



PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES, INSTITUTIONS, AND 
OTHER BODIES. 



ACTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE AMEEICAN 
ANTIQUAEIAN SOCIETY. 



At a special meeting of the Council, convened at the 
Society's hall, August 28, 1884, to consider the loss of 
their President, the Hon. Stephen Salisbury, LL.D. : 

Hon. George F. Hoar, LL.D., the First Vice-Presi- 
dent, occupied the chair, and stated the object of the 
meeting. 

In conformity to a custom inaugurated by Mr. Salis- 
bury, and followed by the Council for many years, he had 
prepared a series of resolutions, which he submitted, as 
follows : 

Resolved, That the Council, learning the death of the 
Honorable Stephen Salisbury at the ripe age of eighty- 
six, desires to record its profound sense of gratitude to 
God for the great gift to this Society of its beloved bene- 
factor, associate and President. For forty-four years he 
has been a member of this Society ; for forty-one years 
he has been a member of the Council ; for thirty years he 
has been President. Except the founder, he has been our 
principal benefactor. He was most valuable in the work to 
which this institution is dedicated, a laborious, careful and 
trustworthy historical investigator, and an admirable pre- 
siding officer. To his wise counsel and direction much of 
whatever success this Society has attained has been due. 
His presence and his generous hospitality have given to our 



40 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

meetings, so long as the oldest of us can remember them, 
their principal attraction and charm. 

Resolved, That our deceased President was a shining 
example of very great moral and intellectual qualities. The 
first citizen of the community where he dwelt, master of 
great wealth, object of universal respect and honor, he bore 
himself with such modesty and humility that it never 
occurred to the humblest man who knew him that they met 
otherwise than as equals. Exempt from the necessity of 
labor on his own account, he was as conspicuous for industry 
and frugality as for generosity. He was a man of stainless 
integrity and honor, and of rare courtesy. A most munifi- 
cent benefactor of almost every enterprise of education or 
charity in this community, he so limited his gifts as to 
stimulate other men to do their share. He was satisfied 
with accomplishing good ends, and never seemed to desire 
credit or applause for what he had done for them. He 
never demanded for his opinion in the administration of 
enterprises whose success was due to his generosity even 
the weight which would lie its due independently of his 
share in the endowment. He l)ore his full part of the per- 
sonal labor of all public undertakings with as much fidelity 
and })ublic spirit as if he had nothing but his labor to 
bestow. The oldest man who survives him can scarcely 
remember a time when he was not loved and honored by 
the whole community. His physical frame yielded to the 
weight of four-score and six years. But his mental powers 
never felt the effect of age. His intellect maintained to the 
last a growth like that of youth. 

Resolved, That a committee of three l)e appointed to 
provide for the delivery before the Society of an address 
commemorative of our deceased President. 

Resolved, That these resolutions and the proceedings of 
this meeting be communicated to the Society and to the son 
of Mr. Salisljury. 



Action of the Gouncil of Am, Antiquarian Society. 41 

Kev. George E. Ellis, D.D., said ; 

Familiar as those of us are, whose years are many, with 
the sentiment and language of commemorative tributes, 
paid to our vanishing assojsiates, one by one, as they pass 
from these pleasant fields of study and discussion, we are 
made to feel on this occasion that the special qualities 
of our late highly honored President restrict us in our 
utterance. We do not find it difficult to define to our- 
selves the elements and proportions of his singularly 
attractive character, or its tone and mode of manifesta- 
tion. But its very delicacy, simplicity and reserve would 
check us in any eulogistic phrase or over-strength of 
expression. His calm and gentle dignity, his equipoise 
of temperament, set forth his winning courtesy of manners. 
With varied and comprehensive attainments, acquired 
through his long years of faithful and enlarged culture, 
the result in him was solidity, rather than brilliancy as a 
scholar and a man of letters. 

He was of the best stock and type of New England 
lineage and development, based on the rugged virtues of a 
rural ancestry, softened, refined and enriched by academic 
and professional training, by easy circumstances, by an in- 
born gentility, and by fine tastes indulged in some of the 
graver departments of historical, archaeological and scien- 
tific studies. We, who were his privileged associates in 
the anniversaries of this Society, in the engaging discus- 
sions in this hall, the monument of his munificent gener- 
osity, and in the graceful hospitality of his home, deal with 
him now in the freshness of our bereavement, only as the 
head and crown of our fellowship. It will be for another 
occasion, many of them indeed, and for larger, more public, 



42 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

and far more comprehensive companies of his friends, his 
fellow-citizens, his ])eneficiaries, to open, but not exhaust, 
the rich and full career of this useful, blameless, and highly 
honored man. 

Joseph Sargent, M.D., said: 

I do not design here to eulogize the excellent and 
admirable friend we have just lost, after so many years of 
pleasant association. We all knew his kindliness, his up- 
rightness, his broad culture, his sound judgment, his force 
of character and his good works. 

But, having ])een Mr. Salisbury's physician for more 
than forty years, my intimacy with him was special and 
peculiar. He was a man of great vigor of constitution, 
bodily and mentally. And it is remarkable that the mind 
continued even to grow after the body, very late, began to 
show symptoms of decay. He had but little sickness in his 
life and very little disease. And he had none of that super- 
stition which is so common that it seems almost natural, 
that because one is sick he must necessarily take medicine. 
He was ready to take advice, and if assured that the pro- 
cesses of restoration, which nature always institutes, could 
be assisted, he accepted the means. But when the time of 
his departure came near he wished neither to endeavor to 
avert nor to postpone the necessary result. His work, he 
said, was done ; and we all know that it was well done. 
There was not only a readiness to accept the inevitalile, but 
an unwillingness to resist nature's work. He died with no 
malady, all his functions being usually well performed. 
There was no struggle, and therefore no victim, but only a 
cheerful surrender. There was no agony of death, but only 
the triumphant release of the spirit. 



Action of the Council of Am. Antiquarian Society. 43 

Hon. John D. Washburn seconded the resolutions, and 
spoke as follows : 

It would be impossible, in the few words which the 
proprieties of this occasion permit, to add to what is so 
admirably said in the resolutions before us, to do justice to 
the character of Mr. Salisbury, or to set forth the qualities 
of his mind and heart with anything like completeness. And 
yet, Mr. President, in seconding the resolutions, I may be 
permitted to speak briefly of four great uses, which by his 
life !ind acts he was always illustrating; a bright example 
to all whose opportunities in any of them resemble or even 
distantly approach his own : the uses of wealth, of educa- 
tion, of high personal and social standing, and of time. 

The great hereditary wealth of which in early life he 
became the possessor, with its additions inevitably great 
as the development of our city proceeded, was held by him 
as a sacred trust, to be administered in wisdom and with 
judicious and discriminating generosity, to be accounted for 
in severity to his own conscience, and in strictness to the 
great Judge of all. Not wasted in the light and gay frivol- 
ities of life, not trifled away in any even of the innocent osten- 
tations of fashion, not devoted to the graceful elegancies of 
luxurious ease, nor yet on the other hand wrapped in the 
sordid and penurious napkin, it was administered by him in 
personal plainness and frugality, for the good of mankind. 
He gave upon the conscience and honor of a gentleman, 
after faithful inquiry into the merits of every cause. Great 
public institutions built their permanent structures on the 
foundations which his large beneficence had laid, and obscure 
and shrinking poverty blessed his name because his ear was 



44 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

never deaf to its appeal. And, modest as generous, pre- 
suming nothing over the many because in the gifts of for- 
tune he was exceptional even among the few : he walked in 
the light of the precept of thiit ancient philosopher whom 
he venerated, " non extulisse se in potestate, non fuisse 
insolentem in pecunia, non se praetulisse aliis propter 
ahundantiam fortunae." 

He illustrated before us the true uses of education : that 
academic, university, professional training attains its high- 
est ends in making men useful, and competent in a fuller 
degree to the discharge of the great practical duties of life. 
The mere elegance of letters did not suffice for him. He 
had little patience with the spirit of dilettanteism. Familiar 
with the ancient classics and the best writers of our own 
language in earlier and later days, cherishing with peculiar 
regard the style and modes of expression of the Addi- 
sonian period of English literature, he used this famil- 
iarity, not as an amusement or a grace alone, but as the 
strengthener and sustainer of mental activity and force for 
actual duty. So that, because educated, and while enjoy- 
ing in the fullest the society and intimacy of scholars, he 
might mingle more effectively with practical men, and bring 
to practical life and the discharge of all his large trusts, 
riper and steadier powers, a complete, well-ordered and self- 
poised mind. 

He made the highest and most influential use of his 
recognized position as the head of the intellectual and re- 
fined society of our community, by showing in his daily 
walk and conversation that there is no such thing among us 
as class distinctions. He slighted no man because he was 
obscure or poor, asking only as the test and touchstone of 



Action of the Council of Am. Antiquarian Society. 45 

his regard the clean hands and pure heart which mark the 
upright man. And, living "the truth which reconciled the 
strong man reason, faith the child," he gave to all men an 
illustration, the more effective because of his conspicu- 
ous position, of the beauty of modest sincerity and Christian 
purity of life. 

To his latest day, and even as he came into the outer 
shadow of the portals of eternity, he made the most con- 
stant and diligent use of time. During the thirty years 
through which it has been my privilege to enjoy his unin- 
terrupted friendship, I do not know that I have ever seen 
him idle for a moment. How bright and instructive the 
example to all who follow him ! The one of all our citizens 
farthest removed from the necessity of application, rivalHng, 
perhaps surpassing, all his acquaintances, in an industry as 
varied as it was diligent and unremitting. And not in 
youth alone, nor in the riper years of manhood's strength 
and perfected powers. Advancing age did not repress 
him, nor did the lengthening shadows entice him to repose. 
Nay, he was, as many of us know, even when the sun of 
life had touched the western horizon, developing new chan- 
nels of thought, and practising new intellectual industries, 
in perennial growth, and with a freshness and hopefulness 
which we never knew to fade or fail. In him, age asked no 
exemptions. For him no present attainment was sufficient 
while aught attainable lay beyond. The " good gray head 
which all men knew," was bowed in reverent submission to 
the Divine will, the resolute and steadfast frame gave way 
at last under the burden of more than four-scoi'e ; but the 
intellectual power went sounding on, and the indomitable 
spirit ceased not from its quest of truth, of light, of knowl- 



46 Memorial of Stephen 

edge. With Ulysses, we may almost hear him saying now, 
as how often in sal)stance and in act has he said before us — 

" How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! 
As tliough to breathe were life. 

and vile it were 

For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 
And this jjraj' spirit yearning in desire 
To follow knowledge, like a sinking- star, 
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought." 

Nathaniel Paine, Esq., said: 

I cannot refrain at this time from expressing my high 
appreciation of the great loss we have sustained, and regret 
that I have not words at command to fully express my 
unbounded respect and esteem for one whom, from boyhood 
days, it has been a privilege to call a friend. We are all 
familiar with his long and active interest in this Society, 
and especially have we valued the personal friendship and 
consideration shown to those who have been associated with 
him in the administration of its affairs. 

It was my good fortune to be associated with Mr. 
Salisbury in various public and private positions, and 
I can testify to his most remarkable faithfulness to all 
the duties which such positions called for. No man that I 
have ever known was more conscientious in his attention 
to even the smallest details of any service laid upon him by 
his friends or fellow-citizens ; and it seems to have been 
his rule to accept no official position if he did not see that 
he could give to it all the time and thought that the strictest 
line of duty could demand. He was especially sensitive to 
any remissness of others in this regard, and could not under- 
stand how so many men accepted offices of duty and trust 



Action of the Council of Am. Antiquarian Society. 47 

and yet neglected to give to them the time and attention 
which in his good judgment they demanded. 

Of his generous response to demands so often made upon 
him for assistance in charitable and educational objects, we 
are well aware ; but how many times he has res})onded 
favorably to such calls, upon the express understanding that 
no public mention should be made of it, we shall never know. 

As illustrating his modesty and his generous disposition 
towards all persons and associations working for the advance- 
ment and good of our city, an incident of several years 
ago comes to mind. When an association in which I was 
especially interested, became in urgent need of pecuniary 
aid, I received from Mr. Salisbury a letter containing a 
check for an amount ample to meet its pressing wants, but 
with the express condition that no mention should be made 
of the name of the donor. I had made no request for 
assistance in behalf of the association, and although he was 
in a position to know something of its needs, I had no 
reason, before the receipt of his letter, to suppose he had 
given a thought to the matter. 

His thoughtful and sympathetic interest in the personal 
welfare of friends and acquaintances is familiar to us all. 
The last conversation it was my pleasure to have with him, 
but a few days before his death, was mainly concerning an 
old friend of his younger days, one who was being called 
upon to sufier pain and vexation of spirit, and for whom he 
expressed the most tender solicitude and regard. These 
traits have endeared him to his friends and the community 
who to-day so sincerely mourn his loss. I count it a high 
privilege to have found in him for so long a time, so warm 
a personal friend, — one ever ready with helpful suggestions 



48 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

— and who, when asked for advice, has given it in the most 
kindly manner. Realizing it all, — the sense of my own per- 
sonal loss, and the deepest, most heartfelt sympathy for his 
son, whose loss is heaviest of us all, — my heart is too full 
to say more than that I join most heartily in the words of 
eulogy by other members of the Council, and in the reso- 
lutions offered. 

Hon. P. Emor}' Aldrich said : 

This Society has lost, not only its venerated chief execu- 
tive officer, but also one of its wisest councillors and largest 
benefactors. Association, such as we have for many years 
enjoyed with a person of his rare combination of virtues, 
makes a positive addition to the pleasures of existence ; 
dignifies daily life; leads us to think better, though more 
humbly, of ourselves, and exalts our estimate of the worth 
of human life and character. Mr. Salisbury exhibited in 
his life and conduct the great qualities of integrity, sin- 
cerity, dignity, and courtesy. There was an entireness or 
completeness in his character, combining absolute probity 
of mind with rectitude of conduct ; a transparent sincerity 
that had nothing to conceal which others had a right to 
know ; a dignity in thought and bearing that commanded 
universal respect, and a courtesy of manner, in his inter- 
course with all classes of his fellow-men, resulting from a 
proper self-respect and a due regard to the rights and feel- 
ings of others. Combined with these elements of character, 
was the subjective quality of benevolence, constantly mani- 
festing itself in deeds of active beneficence. And besides 
and above all these, he possessed that which, a great 
observer of men has said, is a necessary and indispensable 



Action of the Council of Am. Antiqtiarian Society. 49 

element of everj^ o^reat human character, Religion. In his 
conversations with friends he not infrequently dwelt upon 
the great themes of life, death and immortality, with a calm- 
ness and wisdom rivalling the best utterances of the wisest 
among the ancient philosophers, but without their per- 
plexing doubts. He never spoke of death as an evil to be 
dreaded, but rather as a good to be desired ; as a happy 
transition, especially for those who have reached the 
extreme limit of human life, from the infirmities and narrow 
limitations of this stage of existence to a larger and nobler 
sphere of being. Nor was he one of those who under- 
value this life and speak of it as not worth living. Indeed, 
he might very properly have adopted, as expressive of his 
own sentiments on the subject of life and death, the lan- 
guage imputed to Cato by the author of De Senectute ; and 
which has recently been rendered into the purest English 
by a scholar for whom Mr. Salisbury entertained profound 
respect: "I am not," said Cato, "indeed inclined to 
speak ill of life, nor am I sorry to have lived ; for I have 
so lived that I do not think that I was born to no purpose. 
Yet I depart from life as from an inn, not from a home ; for 
nature has given us a lodging for a sojourn, not for a place 

of habitation Old age is the closing act of 

life, as of a drama, and we ought in this to avoid utter 
weariness, especially if the act has been prolonged beyond 
its due length." Mr. Salisbury's conversations respecting 
men and books, public affairs, and scientific and historical 
questions, were always instructive and stimulating. He was 
an excellent judge of character, clearly discerning between 
the true and the false. And while far removed from all 
mere censoriousness in speech, he did not hesitate on all 
8 



50 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

proper occasions, to condemn with just severity whatever 
was base in conduct or character. His great liberality to 
various educational institutions has been eloquently por- 
trayed, in the generous tributes others of his late associates 
have already paid to his memory. But was it not true of 
him, that he was the patron of learning, rather than of 
learned men or great and popular institutions? He always 
seemed, to me, disposed to devote his wealth and personal 
services to opening new avenues to knowledge and honora- 
ble usefulness for those who, without his aid, might never 
be able to attain them, rather than to connect his name as 
patron with some splendid achievement in science, or to 
found an institution that should bear his name down to 
future ages. 

Those of us who have been associated with him as trus- 
tees of our Technical School, founded mainly for the l)enefit 
of young men who have their own fortunes to make, know 
how constant and efficient his labors have been in its behalf, 
and that without his munificent gifts, that institution could 
not possibly have gained the high standing it now holds 
among the best scientific schools of our country. 

I am glad to be permitted to pay even this slight tribute 
to the memory of our late President, whose name and char- 
acter will be long and gratefully cherished, not only hj this 
Society, but by many others which have been enriched by 
his bounty and guided by his counsels. 

Charles Deane, LL.D., said that he was not prepared 
to say more than that he sympathized and agreed with all 
that had been said. 

The resolutions were then unanimously adopted. 



Action of the Council of Am. Antiquarian Society. 51 

The chair appointed as the committee required : Charles 
Deane, LL.D., Joseph Sargent, M.D., and Nathaniel Paine, 
Esq. The Committee invited the Rev. Andrew P. Pea- 
body, D.D., who was present, to prepare the commemora- 
tive address, and he accepted the duty. 

The meetino; was then dissolved. 



ACTION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL 
SOCIETY. 



At the annual meeting of the American Antiquarian 
Society, held at Worcester, October 21, 1884, Charles 
Deane, LL.D., of Cambridge, said: — 

Mr. President : 

At the last meeting of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society, held on the 9th instant, the President, the Hon. 
Mr. Winthrop, who as Mr. Lowell once said of him, is a 
master in the perilous oratory of commemoration, paid an 
appreciative tribute to your late President, Mr. Salisbury. 
At the conclusion of his remarks the Historical Society 
passed this resolution : — 

'■'Resolved, That our Vice-President, Dr. Deane, be 
charged with communicating to the American Antiquarian 
Society, at their approaching Annual Meeting, an assurance 
of our sincere sympathy in their loss of a President who 
had served them so acceptably and efficiently for more than 
a third of a century, and whose devotion and munificence 
have so prominently identified him with their prosperity 
and welfare." 

In laying this expressive resolution before your Society, 
Mr. President, I feel that I am substantially performing the 
obligation which it imposes. But if anything further were 
required to communicate to you the Society's sense of the 
great loss which our whole community has sustained in the 



54 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

death of Mr. Salisbury, I could not do better than by 
laying before you a copy of the remarks of Mr. Winthrop 
himself to which I have alluded. I will at least deposit a 
transcript of them in your archives, for the use of the Pub- 
lishing Committee should they wish to include them in the 
proceedings of this meeting. 

The Historical Society and the Antiquarian Society con- 
tain so many members in common ; there is such a com- 
munity of feeling and interest between them, that hardly a 
prominent member could be taken from the one without the 
loss being shared by the other. 

As an expression of this common sentiment I might refer 
here to conunemorative remarks at the recent meeting of 
the Council of this Society in which members of both 
Societies joined in paying warm tributes to our venerated 
friend. And now we have just listened to a commemorative 
address appointed for this meeting, and delivered b}^ a dis- 
tinguished member of both these kindred societies. 

May I conclude with a single word for myself. To many 
of us, Sir, the death of Mr. Salisbury is a personal loss. 
He was a man to be loved, and I had for him a warm per- 
sonal attachment. I have been connected with the Antiqua- 
rian Society, as a meml)er, for over thirty years, and it has 
been one of the pleasantest associations of my life. I have 
rarely failed to attend its meetings, and the annual autumnal 
gatherings at Worcester, in this delightful season of the 
year, were occasions to look forward to with special interest. 
One of the greatest attractions here was Mr. Salisbury 
himself. I first met him in this hall. His warm and 
kindly greetings as we came up here from year to year to 
this Mecca of our affections, made us all feel welcome. His 



Action of the Mass, Historical Society. 55 

manners, like his character, were simplicity itself. His erect 
foi'm, as he sat in the President's chair and so admirably 
conducted the deliberations of the meetings, will never fade 
from my memory. He was an excellent presiding officer. 
Others may have more eloquent speech, or more graceful 
action, but no one could perform the duties of the office more 
thoroughly and conscientiously than he. He aimed to do 
justice to all. The modest and diffident he encouraged to 
offer their communications, and to those who could claim 
neither brilliancy nor brevity he listened with commendable 
patience and with unfailing courtesy. 

In some commemorative remarks which I had the honor 
to make here soon after the death of our revered Librarian, 
Mr. Haven, I referred to the disappearance from time to 
time of the familiar forms and faces which we had been 
accustomed to meet as we came up to these annual gather- 
ings. One by one they disappear and their places are tilled 
by others, the young and the hopeful, some of whom are 
looking forward to careers of usefulness and distinction in 
the pursuit of those studies which this Society encourages. 
May success attend them. To the Society's roll of departed 
members the name of our venerable and beloved President 
must now be added. 

Eemarks of the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, LL.D. 

The remarks of the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop before 
the Massachusetts Historical Society, referred to by Dr. 
Deane, are as follows : — 

The Hon. Stephen Salisbury died at his home in 
Worcester on the 24th of August last, at the advanced age 
of 86 years. He was elected a resident member of this 



56 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

Society in March, 1858, and had thus l)een one of our little 
number for more than a quarter of a century. He was a 
frecjuent attendant at our Monthly Meetings, in years past, 
notwithstanding the forty miles of travel — I should rather 
say the eighty miles of travel, coming and going — which 
such an attendance involved, and he was always ready to 
cor)})erate with us in whatever might promote our welfare. 

But I need not say that he will be longest remembered in 
connection with Associations and Institutions in his native 
place. Born in Worcester, he never yielded to the attrac- 
tions or distractions of larger places of residence. Through- 
out his protracted life he remained faithful to Worcester — 
doing all in his power, by the ample wealth which he had 
inherited, and by his personal influence and enterprise, to 
build up that which was a little town of 2400 inhabitants at 
his birth in 1798, to the importance which it now enjoj^s as 
a city of (50,000 i)eople, taking rank as the second city of 
Massachusetts in population, business and wealth. As 
President of the old Worcester Bank for nearly forty years, 
as President of the Worcester County Institution for 
Savings for more than five and twenty years, and still more 
as one of the largest benefactors and most active friends of 
the admirable Free Institute of Industrial Science, his name 
will long be gratefully remembei'ed in the heart of the 
Commonwealth. 

But it was as President of the American Antiquarian 
Society, founded by Isaiah Thomas in 1812, that he became 
known and respected far beyond any mere local range. He 
had held the chair of that distinguished institution for thirty- 
four years, and had spared nothing in the way of personal 
effort or pecuniary gift to promote its prosperity and honor. 



Action of the Mass. Historical Society. 57 

The annual meetings of the Society at Worcester were 
occasions not easily to be forgotten by those who were 
privileged to partake of his generous hospitality and 
friendly entertainment. It is among my personal regrets, 
now that he is gone — as I annually wrote to him while he 
lived — that I Avas so rarely able to enjoy those attractive 
gatherings. Another such meeting is just at hand, when he 
will be sorely missed, and which will doubtless furnish the 
occasion for tributes to his memory, additional to those so 
justly paid at his funeral. 

Mr. Salisbury was a man of liberal education and varied 
acquirements, and his contributions to the Transactions of 
the Society over which he presided were numerous and 
interesting. Prepared for college at the old Leicester 
Academy he was graduated at Harvard University in the 
notable class of 1817, which included among its members 
George Bancroft, Caleb Gushing, George B. Emerson, 
Samuel A. Eliot, Judge Charles H. Warren, President Alva 
Woods and Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, and of which I may be 
pardoned for remembering that Francis William Winthrop 
toolc the very first honors, only to die two years afterwards 
of consumption, at nineteen years of age. 

Mr. Salisbury was a warm and liberal friend of his Alma 
Mater, which conferred on him the degree of Doctor of 
Laws in 1875, and of which he was an overseer for twelve 
years. He was also, for several years, a representative for 
the town, and a senator for the county, of Worcester suc- 
cessively in our State Legislature. 

I must not omit to mention that Mr. Salisbury was long 
associated with me as one of the few original Trustees 
of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and 
9 



58 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

Ethnology at Cambridge, and rendered faithful and valuable 
service as its treasurer for fourteen or fifteen years. As 
lately as the 20th of June last — only two months before his 
death — he came over from Worcester, on a hot day, in his 
86th year, to attend a visitation of that museum. The 
physical weakness which he exhibited on that occasion fully 
prepared me for the fatal result which followed so soon 
afterwards. But he was unwilling to deny himself that last 
view of an institution in which he had been so deeply 
interested from its first organization, and which he once told 
me was, in his judgment, the most satisfactorily and suc- 
cessfully administered institution with which he had ever 
been associated. 

I am authorized by the Council to submit the following 
resolutions : 

Resolved, That in the death of the Hon. Stephen 
Salisbury, LL.D., our Society has lost one of its most 
respected and venera})le members, and that a memoir of his 
long life and exemplary character be prepared for our Pro- 
ceedings by the Hon. John D. Washburn. 

Resolved, That our Vice-President, Dr. Deane, be 
charged with connnunicating to the American Antiquarian 
Society, at their approaching annual meeting, an assurance 
of our sincere sympathy in their loss of a President who 
had served them so acceptably and efficiently for more than 
a third of a century, and whose devotion and munificence 
have so prominently identified him with their prosperity 
and welfare. 



ACTION OF THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC, 
GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Society's House, 
18 Somerset Street, Boston, Mass. 

November, 19, 18 84. 

To the President of the 

American Antiquarian Society: 
Deae Sir: — " 

In accordance with a vote passed by the 
Directors of this Society, I have the honor of sending you 
herewith a copy of the resolutions adopted by the Society 
on the death of the late Hon. Stephen Salisbury. 
I remain, dear sir. 

Very respectfully yours, 

D. G. Haskins, Jr., 

Recording Secretary. 

At a meeting of the New England Historic, Genealogical 
Society, held at their House in Boston, on the first Wed- 
nesday of September, 1884, the President, the Honorable 
Marshall P. Wilder, Ph.D., announced that vsince the last 
meeting he had received intelligence of the decease of the 
Honorable Stephen Salisbury, LL.D., of Worcester, a dis- 
tinguished Life-member of this Society. He referred to 
the cordial relations of personal friendship and attachment 
which, for a long period and to the last, had subsisted 



60 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

between them ; and gave tender expression to the emotions 
which the sad event had excited. He spoke of the lasting 
debt of gratitude which the community at hirge, the State, 
his native city, the institutions of learning, science and 
industrial art, the educational, religious and charitable 
institutions, owe to the munificent endovvments, eminent 
and arduous services, and noble example of their constant 
friend and unceasing benefactor. 

Subsequently, and after the reading of the memorial 
minutes, the following resolutions were reported l)y the 
Honorable Nathaniel F. Safford, for the committee appointed 
for that purpose, and the same were unanimously adopted : 

Resolved, That the members of this Society deplore the 
loss we have sustained by the decease of the Honoraljle 
Stephen Salisbury, an eminent member of our Association, 
who, during a long life, was conspicuous in the promotion 
of those historical, antiquarian and educational interests, 
which are conducive to the objects of this institution ; and 
we unite with other fraternities and kindred associations in 
transmitting, of record, a tribute of veneration, honor, and 
affectionate regard to his memory. 

We are impressed with a deep sense of obligation for his 
benign influence and abiding example, contributed to the 
advancement of the manifold and enlarged public interests 
which successively opened upon his path, and engaged his 
sympathy and practical aid. Laden with weighty responsi- 
bilities in important spheres of public and private trust, he 
was ever ready to serve in whatever rank he could he most 
truly useful. Political affiliations had no charm for him, 
unless they were conducive to a conservative love of social 
order and elevation ; and he frowned upon every measure 
or policy which seemed to him to lower the standard of 
public or private virtue. The confidence reposed in his 



Action of the iV^. ^. Historic, Genealogical Society. 61 

administration of great financial trusts, his eiforts for the 
development of industrial science, for the prosecution of 
historical studies and antiquarian research, his liberal 
endowments of the institutions of his native city, his aid 
and encouragement to kindred literary, charitable, and 
educational institutions, and his fidelity in every relation in 
the labors of an energetic, practical life, have deservedly 
commanded the gratitude and respect of the community as 
a trusted and honored citizen wherever known. 

Resolved, That we tender our expressions of sympathy to 
the family of the deceased. 

Ordered, That copies of these resolutions be transmitted 
to the family, and to the American Antiquarian Society, to 
which, for many years, he rendered valuable service as its 
President and one of its most distinguished benefactors. 

Attest : 

David G. Haskins, Jr., 

Recording Secretary. 



COMMUNICATION FROM THE FACULTY OF THE 
WORCESTER CO. FREE INSTITUTE. 



Stephen Salisbury, Esq. 
Sir:— 



In consideration of the peculiarly intimate relations 
of your father to the Free Institute, — relations which for 
many years brought him into close and frequent intercourse 
with the members of its Faculty, — they cannot forbear at 



62 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

this time to express to you their sincerest sympathies and 
their deep sense of personal bereavement in his departure. 

In behalf of and by vote of the Faculty of the Worcester 
County Free Institute. 

Homer T. Fuller, 

Principal. 
Worcester, Mass., August 25, 1884. 



ACTION OF THE WORCESTER BANK. 



Worcester, August 25, 1884. 

At a meeting of the Directors of the Worcester National 
Bank, held this day, the following memorial was unani- 
mously adopted : — 

Our venerated President, the Hon. Stephen Salisbury, 
LL.D., died yesterday evening, August 24th, at the age of 
eighty-six years, five months and sixteen days. 

Mr. Salisbury has l^een on the Board of Directors of 
this Bank for fifty-two years, and its President for nearly 
forty years. 

The loss to us in his experience and his wisdom is so 
pervaded with our sense of the loss of his companionship, 
that we are moved now more by our personal feelings, and 
our own sympathy, than by our ofiicial relation. His place 
here may perhaps soon be filled, but no restoration comes 
to us personally. And, also, when we consider how 
valuable he was to this community, and to the Common- 
wealth, how many public trusts he served faithfully, how 
judiciously he contributed from his ample means to institu- 
tions established for the public good, our own great loss 
is overshadowed. 



Action of the Directors of the Free Public Library. 63 

Resolved: That in the death of its lameuted President, 
the Hon. Stephen Salisbur}'', the Worcester National Bank 
loses an officer whose integrity was superior to question, 
whose good judgment was seldom subject to error, and 
whose fidelity was constant. 

Resolved: That a copy of this memorial be entered 
upon our records, in testimony of our regard for Mr. 
Salisbury, and of our official appreciation of his distin- 
guished merit. 



ACTION OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE FREE 
PUBLIC LIBRARY. 



Free Public Library, 
Worcester, Mass., August 29th, 1884. 
My Dear Mr. Salisbury : 

I have been asked by the Secretary 
of our Board of Directors to send you the subjoined copy 
of a memorial acted upon at a meeting of the Board held 
the evening of the 26th instant. 

I do what he wishes with great satisfaction because I 
concur heartily in the sentiments expressed in the memo- 
rial. 

Sincerely yours, 

Samuel S. Green, 

Librarian. 
To Stephen Salisbury, Esq. 

Memorial. 

The members of the Board of Directors of the Free Public 
Library feel that the institution which they have charge of, 



64 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

has lost a warm friend and zealous promoter of its interests 
in the death of Honorable Stephen Salisbury. 

Mr. Salisbury was a member of the first Board of 
Directors, and helped efiiciently to guide the affairs of the 
Library in its infancy. During his service of twelve years 
as a Director, eight of which he occupied the position of 
President of the Board, he saw the Library well started on 
a career of usefulness, and latterly making rapid strides 
towards a prominent place among the libraries of the 
country. 

Much of its present prosperity and success as an educa- 
tional institution is due to his faithful efforts and wise 
counsel in the earlier years of its existence. 

Mr. Salisbury was not only punctilious himself in the 
discharge of his duties as a Director, but his example 
stimulated the other members of the board to emulate his 
faithfulness. 

After his regretted retirement from the l>oard he always 
retained a lively interest in the welfare of the Library. 

We are much indebted to Mr. Salisbury for generous 
gifts of money and books, and but for his earnest protest 
one of its departments would now bear his name. 

The respect which the meml)ers of this board feel for the 
memory of their late revered associate and President, con- 
strains them to pass the following resolutions : 

Resolved : That it is with a lively sense of gratitude that 
we recall the valuable services rendered by Mr. Salisbury 
to this Library, and remember his generous gifts to it. 

Resolved: That we prize his example and revere his 
memory. 



Action of the Directors of the W., JSf. and R. R. R. 65 

Resolved: That this memorial be entered upon the 
records of the Board of Directors, and that a copy of it be 
sent to the Secretary and to the son of Mr. Sahsbury. 



ACTION OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE WORCESTER, 
NASHUA AND ROCHESTER RAILROAD. 



At a meeting of the Directors of the Worcester, Nashua 
and Rochester Railroad Company, held August 26, 1884, 
the following resolutions were unanimously adopted : 

Resolved: That the Directors of the Worcester, Nashua 
and Rochester Railroad Company, express and place upon 
record their high sense of the great loss they have expe- 
rienced in the decease of the Hon. Stephen Sahsbury, one 
of the three original corporators of the Worcester and 
Nashua Railroad Company, its Secretary at the time of its 
organization in 1845, its President from March 14th, 1850, 
to February 3d, 1851, a Director from its organization to 
its consolidation with the Nashua and Rochester Railroad, 
and a Director in the consolidated company to the time of 
his decease. 

Resolved: That the decease of Mr. Salisbury gives 
occasion to his associates to recognize their sense of the 
value of his constant, faithful and efficient service during a 
period of more than thirty-nine years, their great respect 
for his character and talents, and their regret for the loss 
of the agreeable society and cooperation of one wdio has for 
so long a time aided them in their endeavors to promote 
the prosperity of the important interests committed to their 
management. 
10 



66 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE WORCESTER 
LIGHT INFANTRY. 



Worcester. Mass., August 27, 1884. 
Stephen Salisbury, Esq., 
Sir: 

In accordance with an unanimous vote of this company 
at a special meeting held on Tuesday evening, August 26, 
and in their behalf, I beg to extend to you the sincere 
sympathy of the officers and men of the Worcester Light 
Infantry, in your bereavement, the death of your father, 
the Honorable Stephen Salisbury. 

While recognizing in him all those qualities which have 
so endeared him to the public in general, we especially 
rememijer and appreciate the kindly interest he has always 
manifested in the affairs of this company, and we deeply 
mourn the loss of one who has for so many years proved 
so kind and generous a friend. 

Tendering you the earnest condolence of the company, I 
beg to remain, 

Very Respectfully, 

Your Obedient Servant, 

Edward A. Harris, 
Gaptain Worcester Light Infantry. 

Herbert L. Adams, 

Glerk. 



Action of the Trustees of the W. C. Free Institute. 67 

ACTION OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE WORCESTER CO. 
FREE INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 



WoECESTER, August 29, 1884. 
My Dear Sir: 

At a meeting of the Trustees of the Worcester 
County Free Institute of Industrial Science, held on 
Wednesday, August 27th, the enclosed memorial in rela- 
tion to the death of your honored father was unanimously 
adopted. In the absence of Eev. Daniel Merriman I was 
requested to transmit a copy to you. 

The Board is profoundly impressed with the loss which 
the Institute suffers in the death of its greatest benefactor. 

Please accept from myself my deep sympathy. 

Yours very truly. 

Waldo Lincoln. 

Stephen Salisbury, Esq. 

Memorial. 

In the death of Honorable Stephen Salisbury, the Worces- 
ter County Free Institute of Industrial Science has lost 
one of its earliest and most devoted friends and its 
largest benefactor. His gifts, in lands and money, form a 
great part of the permanent endowment, and his constant 
liberality was unfailing in providing for the ever recurring 
pecuniary wants of the Institute, in its rapid growth and 
development. But great and constant as his liberality was, 
the personal care and attention Mr. Salisbury bestowed 
upon the affairs of the school were even more valuable. 



68 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

Generous, with his ample fortune, in aiding to found and 
maintain educational institutions, he was also a most intelli- 
gent friend and patron of every form of sound learning. 
He was himself a scholar, and with unclouded intellect he 
maintained the tastes and habits of a scholar to the latest 
period of his mental life. 

Having completed his own college course in the early 
part of the present century, when modern science was in its 
infancy, and very little attention was paid to scientific 
studies, yet when the subject of scientific and technical 
education began, in recent years, to attract the attention of 
men, he showed that he fully understood and appreciated 
its importance and was ready to co(")perate in its promotion. 
When, therefore, the project of establishing in Worcester 
a school for instruction in science, and its application to 
the useful arts, was first agitated, Mr. Salisbury at once 
discovered the importance of such an institution to the 
great industrial and educational interests of this community, 
and he immediately became a warm advocate and a most 
efficient agent in carrying that project into successful 
execution. 

He was elected President of the Board of Trustees at its 
first organization, and continued in that ofiice until the day 
of his death. He was rarely, if ever, absent from a meet- 
ing of the Board, and was conscientious and exact in the 
performance of every duty pertaining to the position he 
occupied. While clear and decided in his opinions of 
policies and measures of administration, he was always 
considerate of the views of others, and in his final action 
was guided by the highest reason and never l)y mere pride 
of opinion. 



Action of the Worcester Co. Horticultural Society. 69 

He was present and presided at every annual Commence- 
ment of the Institute, and by grace of manner and wisdom 
of speech, gave new interest and added dignity to the 
occasion. 

At another time and place, we shall be glad to unite 
with others in duly commemorating the great virtues and 
services of our lamented associate in his wide sphere of 
action among the men and in the atfairs of his time. For 
the present we direct that this brief minute, expressive of 
our appreciation of the character and services of our late 
President, and of the great and irreparable loss sutFered by 
ourselves and the Institution whose atfairs we have in 
charge, shall be entered upon our permanent records. 

Resolved: That a copy of this minute and resolution be 
furnished to the papers of the city for pul)lication, and that 
a copy be transmitted by the Secretary to Mr. Stephen 
Salisbury, Jr. 



ACTION OF THE WORCESTER COUNTY 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



In pursuance to call, the members of the Worcester 
County Horticultural Society met at the Hall of Flora, 
August 27, 1884, to take action in memory of Mr. 
Salisbury, one of their Vice-Presidents. Vice-President 
William H. Earle was in the chair. 

A memorial resolution, which had been prepared for the 
occasion, was presented by J. Henry Hill, who prefaced it 
by a graceful tribute. In the course of it he called atten- 
tion to some facts concerning Mr. Salisl)ury's generous 



70 Memo7'idl of 8tej)}ien Salisbury. 

help to the Society, which were known to but few, even of 
the members of the association. It was Mr. Salisbury's 
way to avoid publicity in the doing of good deeds. 

Mr. Hill narrated other interesting incidents in connection 
with Mr. Salisbury's help to other public objects. Show 
him the object was a worthy one and he was always a 
munificent contributor. 

Mr. Hill then read the memorial. 

O. B. Had wen, in seconding the acceptance of the 
memorial, called attention to the fact that Mr. Salisbury 
was Vice-President of the Society when it was first organ- 
ized. The older members of the Society knew and remem- 
bered his help and encouragement. He was the greatest 
benefactor the city had had since its organization. He was 
always doing good. 

W. W. Cook also gave a tribute to the memory of the 
deceased. He was one of the younger members who had 
not known the facts presented by Mr. Hill, and, like other 
younger members, was reaping where such men as Mr. 
Salisbury had sown. 

Dr. George E. Francis, as one of the younger members, 
gave his testimony to the character of Mr. Salisbury. He 
was a man who personally loved fruits and flowers. 
Having occasion to meet him frequently in his garden and 
greenhouses, he was surprised at the close and accurate 
knowledge which he seemed to have of all plants. It 
seemed remarkal)le in a man of such age and with such a 
multitude of pulilic and society interests calling upon 
him. 



Action of the Worcester Oo. Horticultural Society. 71 

William H. Earle also spoke briefly of the good works 
of the deceased. He was one who subordinated self to the 
public good. 

The memorial address, as prepared and ofiered by Mr. 
Hill, was unanimously accepted, and it was directed that a 
copy be sent to Mr. Salisbury's son, and also to the daily 
papers for publication. The address was transmitted to 
Mr. Salisbury by Mr. E. W. Lincoln, Secretary, accom- 
panied by the following letter : 
Stephen Salisbury, Esq. 

My Bear Sir : 

I have the melancholy satisfaction of trans- 
mitting to you in accordance with a unanimous vote of the 
Worcester County Horticultural Society, a tribute to the 
memory of your Father in the very manuscript of its author, 
J. Henry Hill, Esq., senior surviving ex-president. 

The duty can be but melancholy because of the occasion 
for it. Yet there is a satisfaction in the thought that such 
a tribute could be justly paid to our life-long ofiicer and 
benefactor. 

Assuring you of my profound sympathy in your afliic- 
tion, I remain now, as ever, your sincere friend. 

Edward Winslow Lestcoln, 

Secretary of the Society. 
Horticultural Hall, 
Worcester, Mass., August 27, A. D. 1884. 

Memorial. 

The Worcester County Horticultural Society desires to 
place permanently upon its records, as a memorial, an 
expression of its sense of loss sustained in the death of its 



72 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

senior meml)er and officer, the Hon. Stephen Salisbury, 
which occurred at his residence in this city on the evening 
of the 24th instant. 

To speak of Mr. Salisbury as the senior member and 
officer of the Society, is simply to make mention of an inci- 
dent ; ])ut it is an incident which implies much more than a 
mere fjict. It calls to the mind of every present member the 
life of one who has always been found a firm and consistent 
friend of the Society, and one who has at all times ])een 
devoted to its welfare and to the promotion of its best 
interests ; one who in the earlier days of its histoiy 
labored constantly and actively in the conduct of its 
atfairs, and shrank from no responsibility imposed upon 
him in its behalf; one who for so many years as its repre- 
sentative head, discharged the duties of his office with that 
rare promptness and tidelity which characterized the execu- 
tion of all his public trusts, exemplifying in an eminent 
manner the rule of action which always governed him in 
such matters, never to accept a trust without a command 
of the time, and a firm purpose to execute it fully and 
faithfully, and to lay it down whenever he could not, 
satisfactorily to himself, comply with those conditions. 

But it is not merely to Mr. Salisbury's personal labors 
in the administration of its affiiirs that this Society is 
chiefly indebted. He has been the Society's principal 
benefactor. When it has stood most in need of assistance, 
he has always been ready to give it, even before the 
asking. His benefactions to it have been many and gener- 
ous. They have been so timely in their bestowal as to 
evince on his part a clear and intelligent understanding of 
the Society's needs, so large in their amounts as to 



Worcester Society of Antiquity. 73 

illustrate his entire faith in the Society's future. They 
have been made, withal, with such grace and modesty, 
with such an entire absence of display or ostentation, that 
their value has been enhanced many fold, and carried 
conviction to every heart that they were prompted by a 
genuine interest in the cause for the promotion of which 
they were made. 

To Mr. Salisbury's foresight and liberality, guided by 
his discriminating estimate of its needs, his confidence in 
its power for good, and his faith in the ultimate accomplish- 
ment of its mission, this Society owes much, more perhaps 
than to any other one man who has been connected with it 
during the whole period of its existence, for its healthy 
growth and its present commanding position ; and it is 
only fitting that we should pay a just and proper tribute to 
his memory to be incorporated with and handed down as a 
part of its history. 



WORCESTER SOCIETY OF ANTIQUITY. 



Worcester, Mass., October 21, 1884. 
Stephen Salisbury, Esq. 
Dear /Sir: 

At a meeting of "The Worcester Society of 
Antiquity," held at their rooms, Tuesday evening, October 
7, 1884, the following Preaml)le and Resolutions were 
reported by the chairman of a committee appointed Septem- 
ber 2, on the death of your honored father : 

Worcester, October 7, 1884. 

The committee appointed at the last meeting to prepare 

resolutions on the death of Hon. Stephen Salisbury, present 
11 



74 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

the following report and recommend the adoption of the 
Resolutions offered : 

The Worcester Society of Antiquity desire to inscribe 
upon their records their appreciation of the great loss 
sustained by them, in common with other institutions of a 
like nature, by the death of the Hon. Stephen Salisbury, 
which took place in this city, Sunday, August 24, 1884, at 
the age of eighty-six years, five months and sixteen days. 

Therefore, Resolved: That in the death of Mr. Salisbury, 
this Society realize the loss of one who was deeply inter- 
ested in their welfare, that they recall with gratitude the 
kind and generous appreciation of their work so often 
shown by him in kindly words and liberal contributions. 
That although not an active meml)er, he was in full sympa- 
thy with them and the objects they have in view, and was 
most cordial in the expression of his wishes for their success. 

Resolved: That we also recognize the loss sustained by 
a society of a kindred nature with our own in this city, 
over which Mr. Salisl)ury presided for so many years with 
such distinguished honor. That his example is especially 
worthy of emulation by all interested in historical and 
antiquarian studies, in sound learning, and in an irre- 
proachal)le reputation. 

Resolved: That we extend to our associate, Mr. Stephen 
Salislmry, our warmest sympathy in his great bereave- 
ment by the death of his honored father. 
For the Committee, 

Nathaniel Paine, 

Ghairraan. 

On motion the Report was accepted and the Preamble 
and Resolutions unanimously adopted. 

A true copy. Attest. 

Daniel Seagrave, 

Secretary. 



Action of the W., JST. and B. R. R. Co. 75 

ACTION OF THE STOCKHOLDERS OF THE 

WORCESTER, NASHUA AND ROCHESTER 

RAILROAD COMPANY. 



At the annual meeting of the stockholders of the 
Worcester, Nashua & Rochester R. R. Co., held December 
2d, 1884, Francis A. Gaskill, Esq., offered resolutions of 
respect to the memory of Mr. Salisbury, prefacing them 
with the following remarks : 

"I have been requested to present certain resolutions 
which have been placed in my hands. They express, I 
doubt not, the feelings of every stockholder of this corpora- 
tion in reference to the character and services of the late 
Hon. Stephen Salisbury. His intimate connection with 
the Worcester and Nashua Railroad from its inception 
renders such action especially appropriate, while the 
admiration of each of us, in common with all who knew 
him, for the dignity of his manhood, renders it a grateful 
and imperative duty. I know that as I read them you will 
feel that no word of eulogy in them is exaggerated, no 
word of commendation undeserved. Before his life the 
curtain needs not to be dropped, but rather drawn aside, 
and we see just the man we have known, with his clear 
intellect, his scholarly mind and tastes, his engaging 
modesty, his gracious beneficence, his purity of life, his 
unimpeachable integrity, and his lofty ideal of business 
morality, attained and realized as I believe in every transac- 
tion of his life. The ethics of business found their ample 
embodiment in him as the ideal business man. I move, 
therefore, the adoption of these resolutions, that they be 



76 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

entered upon the records of the corporation, and a copy 
sent to the son of the late Mr. Salislniry." 

"■Resolved: As the sense of this meeting, that by the 
decease of the Honorable Stephen Salisbury, one of the 
three original corporators of the Worcester and Nashua 
Raih'oad Company, its Secretary at the time of its oganiza- 
tion in 1845, its President from March 14, 1850, to 
February 3, 1851, a Director from its organization to its 
consolidation with the Nashua and Rochester Kaih-oad, and 
a Director in the consolidated company to the time of his 
decease, we have lost the personal fellowship of one of the 
earliest and most assiduous friends of the company, whose 
laliors in support of the enterprise in the struggles of its 
tirst years, and whose continued services until the time of 
his decease have l)een conspicuous, faithful and meritorious. 

^'^ Resolved: That to this expression of our appreciation 
of his worth in these official relations, we desire to add our 
further tribute to his memory as a man whose integrity was 
at all times firm and above suspicion, whose gentle and 
amiable temper and manners made business connection 
with him agreeable, whose sense of personal honor and 
accountability was according to that standard of conscien- 
tiousness and virtue, which alike in private life and in 
public service is the only basis of confidence, trust and 
respect." 

The resolutions and Mr. Gaskill's suggestions regarding 
them were adopted by a unanimous rising vote. 



Action of the Worcester Fire Society. 11 

EXTRACT FROM A PAPER READ BEFORE THE 

WORCESTER FIRE SOCIETY AT ITS ANNUAL 

MEETING, JANUARY 5, 1885. 



BY HON. EDWARD L. DAVIS. 



"Mr. Moderator: 

Since our last annual meeting we have 
been called upon to part with our senior member, Stephen 
Salisbury, and although official notice and action have 
already been given and taken, I may with propriety briefly 
allude to the event. It was of most significant importance, 
for it removed the only living link which bound us to the 
last century, and now that he is gone, how much farther 
back in the past, how much more obscure in the distance, 
seems the time of the founders of this Society. With what 
a rushing and ever-quickening pace come the new years. 
How much nearer seems the new century. Elected to this 
Society in January, 1824, Mr. Salisbury took his place as 
the last one on the roll of its members. In the course of 
forty-six years he passed to the position of first on its roll 
and held that position for fourteen years. His connection 
with this Society covers the period from 1824 to 1884. 
His last appearance here was at the annual meeting in 
January, 1883, when all the members of the Society save 
three were present. Upon that occasion, after the usual 
dinner, Mr. Salisbury spoke in his happiest manner. We 
remember with pleasure his bright cheery tone. How he 
dwelt upon the circumstances of old age, and while appreci- 
ative of deference and respect, how delicately he suggested 
the embarrassment he felt at always being reminded, even 



78 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

though with the most extreme kindness and courtesy, of the 
fact that everyliody about him was younger than himself. 
Never did he appear better. It was remarked at the time, 
"he outdid himself." With us his light went out while 
burning brightly, leaving an example unsurpassed of 
loyalty to this institution. Except for ilhiess or absence 
from town, our memories tell us, and the records will 
show, that he was punctually present at the meetings. He 
did not shrink from summer's heat or winter's cold, nor did 
he consider that the absence of others might lessen the 
degree of his own enjoyment, but recognizing that the first 
duty of membership is attendance, he faithfully performed 
that duty and seldom failed to respond when his name was 
called. None knew him better than his associates here, 
nor in contem})lating his long life, his industry, fidelity, 
high character, stainless integrity and qualities of mind and 
heart, have any accorded to him higher honors or paid 
to his memory more deserving tributes of respect and 
affection." 



SERMON 



DELIVERED IN THE 



FIRST UNITAEIAN CHURCH, AT WORCESTER, 



SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1884. 



By rev. a. p. PEABODY, D.D., LL.D. 



SERMON. 



Isaiah xiv. 6. " We all do fade as a leaf." 



npO the prophet no image can have seemed more sad than 
this. In the old world there is nothing beautiful in 
the retreating life of the forest, in the waning glorj of the 
year. The leaf borrows no new tints of heavenly glow ; 
but puts on only a sodden, earthy hue that seems typical 
of decay and impending dissolution. Such was the aspect 
of human life when all that man knew of it was comprised 
in the formula, Dust to dust. In the time of Isaiah there 
may have been some dim, feeble apprehension, but no sure 
hope of immortality. The prevalent belief of the most 
devout was grateful acquiescence in the Providence which 
had made man's days as a handbreadth, yet had known 
how to crowd them with deliverances and blessings without 
number ; not by any means the faith expressed by a 
Hebrew some centuries later, — "God created man to be 
immortal, and made him to be an image of his own 
eternity." With us nature puts on her shining robes to 
die. The leaf fades from beauty into glory. Our forests 
are like the bush on Horeb, burning, yet unconsumed. 
Tree differs from tree only as star from star, all resplen- 
dent, yet each with its own peculiar lustre. There is 
more of transfiguration than of decay. In the still bright 

days while winter lingers in the background, the leaves 
12 



82 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

become mere skeletons before they fall, and have exhaled 
into the upper air more of their substance than the earth 
can claim. 

Have we not here a type of what the fading leaves 
of human life ought to be under the light of the life 
eternal ? We all do fade as a leaf, and many of the leaves 
on our life-tree wither before the summer is over. In 
some respects we pass our prime before in others we have 
reached it. After middle life, though we may gain, we 
lose ; and by a mere earthly valuation we lose more than 
we gain. There remain few first experiences in any 
department of life ; the freshness of our joy has passed 
away. Our ambitions have been brought within a nar- 
rower scope. There have been some utter disappointments, 
and they, even in a successful career, make themselves felt 
enduringly, because we know that what once seemed within 
reach is now forever unattainable. Very many of what 
were once enjoyments have lost their zest. There is less 
revenue to be had from this world than we have already 
had. Gradually at first, then very fast, the horizon con- 
tracts to our view, till for the interminable vista that used 
to open before us — the luminous mist over it only making 
it more gorgeous and attractive — we have a brief space 
lying under a deep shadow and shut in by the death-river. 
Meanwhile our standing ground is cut from beneath us by 
the eager onrush of a younger generation, who crowd into 
our places before we are prepared to leave them. In fine, 
in a merely earthly point of view there must be a contin- 
uous fading of what rendered life most enjoyable and 
hopeful, and most of all, in the passing on before us of so 
many that were unspeakably precious to us, whom new 



Sermon. 83 

friends cannot replace. All this is the more sad, because 
in the capacity and yearning for enjoyment there is no 
decline, nay, even a growth ; for it is not the true life that 
wanes, but only its earthly resources, which may be all 
that it has sought to feed upon. 

But it is ours, if we will, to make the fading life more 
beautiful than ever before, and autumn more full of loveli- 
ness and rich promise than spring or summer. Under 
the clear shining of an undying hope life may culminate 
as it seems to decline, grow as it wanes, and glow with 
a more resplendent radiance as it nears the portal of 
immortality. There are elements of character that need 
the early frosts to mature them into beauty. The disap- 
pointments and bereavements that one has encountered 
lonof before he bears tokens of venerable age are almost 
essential to the ripeness of the religious character. One 
never feels fully the need and worth of a faith in things 
unseen and eternal, till he has been made profoundly 
sensible of the frailty of all beside. There may indeed 
be vigorous principle, faithful duty, the earnest service 
of God's man, and this is the best part of religion ; without 
this all the rest is worthless. But with the experiences 
of which I speak there come in a tenderness of spirit, 
a power of communion with the unseen, a consciousness 
of continued fellowship with those who have passed on 
before us and with all that pertains to their spiritual home, 
more distinctly heavenward aims and aspirations, a life 
that feels itself appertaining equally to the two worlds, and 
has its fading leaf tinted with hues caught from its fimiliar 
conversance with a higher sphere of being. 

Then, too, there are specific graces of character that 



84 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

Iielong of special right to the fading leaf. Though there is 
no trait of excellence which is forbidden to any, or is out 
of place in any age or condition, the ages as well as the 
estates of life have their special virtues. While the leaves 
are still green on the life-tree, the active powers demand 
peculiar culture, and need to be energized by the strenuous 
purpose of right, and by an aggressive spirit of conflict 
with every form of wrong and evil. The massive frame 
of character may then be laid and reared, yet may not be 
filled in and rounded out with all that shall make it seem 
very near perfection. It may have the strength, but 
perhaps not yet the finished beauty of holiness. This, if 
not acquired before, must tint the leaves as they are 
beginning to fade, and may give a golden hue to replace 
the summer green. Gentleness and meekness, love-born 
courtesy, forbearance and long-suflfering, the sense of 
spiritual realities that infuses itself into all scenes and 
objects, makes common life sacred, and common duties 
like an altar-service, and common enjoyments a perpetual 
thanksgiving, the delicate tracery which runs along with 
the thread of the daily life, and gives a charm to what else 
were devoid of interest, — these, to be spurned by none, 
ought to be the ornament, the diadem, the crown of glory 
for the declining years, shedding over them the light of 
the resurrection morning and the unset ting sun, making the 
life seem incapable of dying, and giving more and more the 
consciousness of having already passed from death into life. 
And if with growing years we feel the fading of the leaf, 
a diminished power of active work, a relaxed hold on the 
wonted objects of endeavor and ambition, we have here a 
scope for activity no less vigorous and fruitful than that of 



Sermon. 85 

our youth or prime, — one, too, in which we may do no 
less loyal and needful service to the world around us ; for 
never did society so much need the example and infusion 
of these gentler elements of character, to temper its fervid 
haste, to tone down its asperities, and to intenerate its 
hardness. Such ministries we have seen not infrequently 
among those who have retired from the heat and burden of 
the day, yet have filled a no less conspicuous place and 
borne a no less essential part in the common life-work than 
when they were among the foremost on the career of 
honorable competition. 

Here I cannot but recall one, fresh in your memory and 
very dear to mine, whose venerable form I miss in its 
accustomed place for the first time. What autumn-beauty 
(;an be so intensely beautiful as the quiet of a serene old 
age like his, Avhen the life-work has been well done and 
the plaudit of the Master has been heard with the in^vard 
ear, — when memory holds the torch to the hope full of 
immortality, and hope lights up even the deepest shadows 
of memory, — when the many partings by the wayside are 
but the presage of greetings and eternal reunions in the 
upper rooms of the Father's house ? 

Even under the heaviest burdens of infirmity and sufi'er- 
ing there may ])e in the fading leaf only the richer glory. 
Patience and resignation, the peace of God and the clear 
vision of heaven illumine many a chamber of chronic illness 
and couch of perpetual weariness and languishing. There 
are those who were never so lovely in the fullness of a 
God-inspired strength and unresting diligence as now, 
when they can only wait and sufi'er. Faith is never so 
queenly, hope never so sight-like, the Christian spirit 



86 Memorial of Stephen Salishury. 

never so rich in its every aspect and issue, as when the 

heavy hand of a mysterious Providence rests upon one 

who had been true to the demands of active service, had 

taken for his watchword, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant 

heareth," and now, still hearing the same voice, responds : 

" Cast as a broken vessel by, 
Thy will I can no longer do ; 
Yet, while a dally death I die, 
Thy power I can in weakness show, 
My snfte rings may thy glory raise, 
My speechless wo proclaim thy praise." 

While some of the strongest spirits are thus disciplined, 
there are souls that never seem truly great till such trials 
are laid upon them. I have known those who had no 
conspicuous opportunities — if they had, they might have 
been unequal to them — whose uneventful, prosaic walk 
commanded no stress of interest ; one knew that they were 
true and good, but their characters liore no strong marks 
and made no deep impression. I have known such persons, 
who, when visited with prolonged infirmity, and under the 
shadow of lingering death, have manifested a surpassing- 
energy of spirit. Their lips before sealed, except to 
communings of no emphatic meaning, have been opened to 
the utterance of high spiritual thoughts, of fervent praise, 
of ecstatic hope. They have risen to the emergency, have 
felt the throbbings of an immortal life beneath the dying 
flesh, have watched the ebbing life-tide, have foreseen the 
close as it drew near, and met the final call as with 
girded loins, knowing in whom the}^ have believed, and 
assured that death cannot separate them from the love of 
God as revealed in the risen Saviour. Such souls are 
witnesses for the fiiith they love. They strengthen the 
timid and the doubting. They diffuse a profound and vivid 



Sermon. 87 

sense of the reality of the higher life, of the omnipotence 
of the Gospel, of the certainty of its promises, of the 
Almighty arm beneath the sufferer, of the suflficiency of 
God's grace for the soul's severest stress and deepest need. 
Others there are, who first learn the blessedness of 
religious trust when the leaf begins to fade. There are 
those who have led, it may be, a creditable worldly life ; 
but they have been so busy and care-cumbered, or have 
been so imbedded in ease and affluence, that they have 
hardly lifted a thought Godward or heavenward. But the 
early frost has touched the green Ijranch, and they know 
for a certainty that it will never be green again. Shall 
its leaves merely wither and fall, or shall they clothe 
themselves in colors borrowed from the bow of heaven, 
which shall not fade,- but shall blush and glow into 
immortality? There are those in whom the check on 
the earthly life awakens every precious memory of early 
faith, recalls a devout mother's teachings, revives impress- 
ions that had seemed evanescent, quickens the dormant 
sense of a spiritual being, bows the soul in sincere peni- 
tence for the years in which God has had so small a part, 
and leads it humbled, to him whose words are, "Him 
who Cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." And 
then the fading leaf grows beautiful. The stages of decline 
are rungs of the ladder from earth to heaven, on which 
descending angels meet, with messages of good cheer, the 
soul that is going home to God. Death is no longer the 
close, but the beginning of the career; and the blessings 
that rested on the days of busy and happy health are 
recalled, not with sorrow that they have ceased to be, but 
as tokens of a love that will be with its child as he passes 



88 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

through the valley of the shadow of death, and pledges 
that he shall dwell in the house of God forever. 

What I have said has not been a mere feeble attempt to 
draw a common-place lesson from the glory that covers the 
retreat of life from tield and forest. I have used this 
retreating life to group around it what I have seen and 
known of what seem the darkest, yet are really the 
brightest portions of human experience. For many years 
of my life I was in constant conversance with such 
experiences, nor have I at any time been a stranger to 
them. There are those now under the stress of sutfering 
that can cease only with death, whom I never see without 
feeling, with a conviction that has no room to grow 
stronger, the power of the world to come, the reality of 
those ho})es that lay hold on eternity, the presence of an 
Almighty Comforter, the assurance that Jesus uttered no 
vain words when he said, "My peace I give unto you." 
That God is good, we feel when everything smiles around 
and before us. Even more loudly does the echo ring from 
the scenes in which men cling to him as the all in all, 
and know that he is with them in the furnace of severest 
trial, — that, as the old prophet says, he sits as the refiner 
and puritier of silver, and watches to see his own image 
mirrored from the metal's quivering surface. We all do 
fade as a leaf, earlier or later, some while the summer still 
lingers, some in the late frost of impending winter. But 
through the vigor of an immortal hope, we need not wither 
in inglorious decline, but in the colors of the crimson 
dawn, which shall grow ever brighter till they are merged 
in the risen and eternal day. 



EULOGY 



Rev. ANDREW P. PEABODY, D.D., LL.D. 

Read at the Annual Meeting of the American Antiquarian 
Society, October 21, 1884. 



13 



EULOGY. 



nnHE word gentleman, as you all know, means a man of 
J- family, and, like scores of words which we use without 
analyzing them, comprehends a profound truth. It desig- 
nates a combination of traits and qualities that are trans- 
mitted cumulatively, agd with an ever decreasing admixture 
of baser elements, through a series of generations, when 
there is no mis-alliance to impair the heritage. 

The law of heredity was first promulgated by Divine 
inspiration, I believe (for I can account on no other 
hypothesis for such precocious wisdom in so rude an age) , 
in the Decalogue, in which it is said that the sins of the 
fathers last on (as they always do, at least in proclivity and 
strong liability) to the third and fourth generation ; while, 
in what is no hyperbole if the world shall endure so long, 
the inheritance of virtue and piety has the promise of 
transmission for thousands of generations, thus giving us 
hope of the ultimate survival of the fittest and of the saints' 
inheriting the earth. 

Of the malign aspect of this law we have had conspicu- 
ous illustrations in lines of kings and princes, yet not gen- 
tlemen, as in the houses of Hanover and Bourbon, and in 
not a few instances within our more familiar cognizance, in 
which families claiming distinction because they were old 
have paraded before the nineteenth century infirmities, frail- 
ties, limitations of immemorial antiquity in their respective 
races. 



92 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

Of the better side of this law New England is full of 
examples. Of the names most honored now, a considerable 
proportion have been borne without stain or blemish for two 
centuries or more ; and there are few of the men who were 
pillars in church and state when our colonies were in their 
infancy, who, were they to return to this world, would not 
tind among their posterity those whom they would grate- 
fully recognize as their heirs. So far as we have materials 
for comparison, we may trace in successive generations a 
growth of character, the primitive outlines of substantial 
integrity and high principle tilled out and rounded into an 
ever more graceful symmetry and beauty. The founders of 
these families, while in some instances men of special mark, 
in others have been plain farmers, mariners or mechanics, 
whose record is that of honest lives, loyal membership of 
the Christian Church, and civic service in those town 
governments which gave the type, tone and spirit to the 
government of colony, province and State, and framed the 
procreant cradle of our liberty. In families thus derived, 
each son has more than reproduced his father, if not in 
merit, in scope of influence and capacity of service. 

In many of our New England families the one link that 
is wanting is that which connects them definitely with their 
English ancestry. With every token of having been well- 
born and well-bred, and with potential ancestors in whom 
this condition would have been fultilled, they kept no 
records, or records that are irrecoverably lost, of the 
connection, which in some families is supplied by myth, 
in others is confessedly unknown. 

The latter is the case with the Salisbury family. The 
name has been borne in England by men of high reputation 



Eulogy. 93 

in arms and in learning, and by families which have given it 
ample honor. Its origin has been by some antiquaries 
derived from the city of Salisbury ; but it does not appear 
that the family ever had any connection with that city, — 
having lived in North Wales for many generations, having 
had in Denbighshire large family estates, having intermar- 
ried with distinguished Welsh famihes, and having furnished, 
from father to son, governors of Denbigh Castle, and sheriffs 
and members of Parliament for Denbighshire. The English 
members of the family trace their name and ancestry to 
Adam de (or von) Salzburg, a younger son of the Grand 
Duke of Bavaria, who came to England with William the 
Conqueror, and had lands assigned to him in Denbighshire, 
a portion of which has ever since been in the possession of 
his family. 

In confirmation of this pedigree we have the testimony 
of an author not belonging to the family, that the Welsh 
Salusburys (they spell the name with a u instead of an i) 
have preserved in features and complexion an unmistakable 
German cast. How ftir this description is applicable to the 
Massachusetts family you are competent judges ; but 
among the reasons for believing that they were descended 
from the Welsh family is the statement that the late 
Eeverend Sir Charles J. Salusbury, who till a very recent 
time was the representative of the Welsh family and held 
the ancestral estate, resembled in person our late President. 
It is also said that a portrait by Sir Joshua Keynolds of 
Mrs. Thrale, Dr. Johnson's friend, who was a Salusbury, 
bears a marked resemblance to one of the ladies of the 
American family. I am inclined to think that family 
resemblances are at least as authentic records of kindred as 



94 Memorial q/ Stephen Salisbury. 

the oral traditions which have been often taking shape many 
years before they are written. I was once addressed by 
my name by a gentleman in Scotland on the score of 
resemblance to a descendant of a difterent son from my 
own progenitor of a common ancestor, who had been dead 
for more than two centuries, and I once detected by a well 
known family trait a descendant of that common ancestor's 
cousin. 

Another reason for believing that the New England 
family was derived from the Welsh stock, is that the 
armorial bearings of the latter are known to have been in 
the possession of the former for more than a century ; while 
it was, I think, only at a comparatively recent date that 
American families that had not brought coats-of-arms with 
them, began to apply for them at the herald's office. 

It is known that various members of the Welsh family 
emigrated to America, and settled in Massachusetts, Rhode 
Island, New York and Pennsylvania. The earliest known 
ancestor of our late President is John Salisbury, of whom 
we first hear in Boston in 1685, and who died in 1702. As 
his oldest child was born as late as 1690, he can hardly be 
identical with either of the two John Salusburys, — if two 
there were, and not one, reported with variations, — one of 
whom is said to have come to this country between 1630 
and 1640, the other between 1640 and 1645. There is 
record of the baptism of five children of John Salisbury in 
the Second Church in Boston. In the Prol^ate records he is 
described as mariner^ — a term which then included ship- 
masters and all sea-going people. An extraordinarily large 
proportion of his not very large estate being in silver plate, 
a still larger proportion of it in ready money, and yet more 



Eulogy. 95 

in cash due on bonds, it seems probable that he had 
property in the mother country or elsewhere that was not 
included in the inventory, or, if not, that the plate con- 
sisted of family heirlooms that had come to him without 
purchase. In either case the inventory would point to 
some trans- Atlantic interest or connection, which has its 
obvious explanation by supposing him of English parentage, 
though he may possibly have been a son of the last of 
the Johns already named, who is said to have settled in 
Swansea, Massachusetts. 

Nicholas Salisbury, the son of John, was a merchant in 
Boston, owned a house on Washington street that is still in 
the possession of one of his descendants, had a family tomb 
in King's Chapel Burying-ground, left memoranda of the 
baptism of three negro servants that were his own property, 
and appears to have borne all the tokens of prosperity, 
high standing and unblemished reputation. Through him 
the American family has its definite position as to its past 
and its then future. His wife's ancestry can be distinctly 
traced without a break almost as far back as the discovery 
of America. His wife was Martha Saunders, whose mother 
was a granddaughter of Giles Elbridge, who married the 
niece and heiress of Robert Aid worth, and with him was 
co-patentee of the ancient Pemaquid grant. The Aldworth 
and Elbridge families have many names of men of dis- 
tinguished merit, large fortune and munificent liberality. 
The children of Nicholas became connected by marriage 
with the Quincy, Sewall, Tuckerman, Waldo, and other 
well-known New England families, and their descendants 
in like manner were and are allied to the Chauncej'^s, 
Higginsons, Lincolns, Phillipses, Woolseys, and a long list 



96 Memorial of Stephen Salishuinj. 

of names held in honor among us, — a list, too, that has 
upon it none but honorable names. 

Stephen Salisbury was the eleventh and youngest child 
of Nicholas. He early settled in Worcester, as a partner 
of the commercial house previously established in Boston 
by his brother Samuel, who was by seven years his senior. 
Worcester was then a small place ; but it was the shire 
town of the county, and if not before, it was made by the 
enterprise of the Salisbury brothers, the business centre for 
a large rural district. Stephen Salisbury, the elder, was, 
first of all, a rigidly upright and just man, having and 
deserving the implicit confidence of all who were brought 
into relation with him. He was generous and hospitable, 
too, and his house was for many years made attractive to a 
large circle of kinsfolk and friends, equally by the loveli- 
ness of his venerable mother, who long shared his home, 
and by his own delicate courtesy and assiduous kindness, in 
which he was warmly seconded, and his home enriched and 
endeared, when, quite late in life, at the age of fifty-one, 
he married Elizabeth Tuckerman, daughter of Edward and 
Elizabeth Tuckerman of Boston, and sister of the Reverend 
Doctor Joseph Tuckerman, the eminent philanthropist. 

The Tuckerman family is believed also to have been of a 
German stock. Its American record was no less stainless 
than that of the Salisburys, and Mrs. Salisbury's mother 
was distinguished for her superior intellect, for her domestic 
virtues, for her fervent piety, and for special care and 
fidelity in the religious training of her children, — qualities 
which her daughter inherited in full. 

Our late President was the oldest child of this marriage, 
and the only one that survived infancy. He was born on 



Eulogy. 97 

the eighth of March, 1798. He was fitted for college, 
partly in Worcester, and in part at Leicester Academy. 
He belonged in Harvard College to the class of 1817, — a 
class containing an unusual number of men of marked 
ability and reputation, and several — as George Bancroft, 
Caleb Cushing, George B. Emerson and Stephen Higginson 
Tyng — who held a foremost place in their respective 
departments. Mr. Salisbury maintained a good rank in his 
class, and graduated with honors. His commencement part, 
on the Influence of the Peace (after the war with England) 
on the Condition of the Professional Man, indicates the 
trend of thought at the time, especially the expecta- 
tions based on the fresh flow of the long-refluent tide of 
general prosperity in New England. 

His class was one the members of which must have done 
a great deal toward educating one another, and all the more 
for the rigidly enforced monastic regime of the college, 
under which the law-abiding student had absolutely no out- 
side life. At that time the play was hard work. The 
literary societies — the sole pastime of the good scholars — 
had meetings only for mutual improvement, and the 
ambitious young writer had there a much more severely 
critical audience than when he stood on the stage at Com- 
mencement. 

A large part of the college instruction was then given by 
lectures, — perhaps not the best way ; but such a corps of 
lecturers as Harvard College then had the country cannot 
have seen since. Besides two full courses from Professor 
Farrar, whom those who heard him pronounced the most 
eloquent of men, there were courses delivered to the under- 
graduates by Chief Justice Parker, Doctors Bigelow, 
14 



98 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

Jackson and Warren, Edward Everett, Levi Frisbie, George 
Ticknor, to cite only names that have not passed into 
oblivion. 

The instruction in the classics was thorough of its kind, 
and I feel l)y no means sure that it was not the best kind. 
The niceties of grammatical construction were not studied 
technically. I doubt whether the professors themselves 
could have passed an examination like that through which 
alone a freshman can now enter college. The sole aim was 
to enable the student to understand and enjoy the classical 
writers, and to render them into the best possible English. 
Grammar was in this process unconsciously iml>ibed, 
and virtually understood, though its mysteries could not 
have l)een voiced. This method trained a much larger 
proportion of lifelong lovers and readers of the classics 
than is produced by the system which gives the tirst place 
to the study of the language, the second to its contents. It 
was in this way that Mr. Salisbury acquired his taste for 
the classics, and his capacity and habit of reading them 
with an enjoyment that only grew with his years. 

On leaving college Mr. Salisbury returned to Worcester, 
which was thenceforward his home. He studied law with 
the Honorable Mr. Burnside, and became and continued a 
meml)er of the liar, but without entering into general prac- 
tice, finding his fully sufficient lousiness in the care of his 
father's increasing property, which in 1829 became by 
inheritance his own. 

But his life has been as far as possible from a self-seeking 
or self-centred life. With no ambition other than that of 
the full discharge of the duties devolving upon him, this 
noblest of ambitions has been the inspiration of his whole 



Eulogy. 99 

career from early manhood till the death-shadow gathered 
over him. The growth and prosperity of his native town 
he has kej)t constantly in view. He has contributed largely 
to the development of its resources, has made the improve- 
ment of his own property subsidiary to the public welfare, 
and has given his liberal aid, and his often more valuable 
personal service, to every institution and enterprise promo- 
tive of the general good. With his habit of incessant 
industry and the most careful economy of time, were we to 
subtract from his lifework the portion of it that had not 
either a direct, or a designed, though indirect reference to 
the well-being of others or of the community at large, you 
would find a remainder surprisingly small; while, had he 
chosen simply safe and lucrative investments for his prop- 
erty, and led the life of elegant and literary leisure which 
would not have been uncongenial to his tastes, it is hard to 
say in how many ways and forms the lack of his counsel, 
cooperation and munificence would have straitened and 
enfeebled the interests which he constantly cherished and 
advanced. 

It scarce needs to be said that when public office came to 
him, it came from the choice of others, not his own. He 
belonged to a class of men of whom I fear that he was 
almost the last, who would not have lifted a finger to obtain 
the highest or to evade the humblest public charge, l)ut in 
either, as a matter of conscience and of sacred honor, 
would have rendered the very best service within their power. 
Such men used to have office forced upon them ; they 
never sought it. JNIr. Salisbury served both in the town 
and the city government of Worcester, was for two 
years in the House of Kepresentatives and for two in the 



100 Memoi'ial of Stephen Salisbury. 

Senate of Massachusetts, and was for two successive terms 
one of the Presidential Electors. 

In various local institutions he has been a frequent office- 
bearer, and most assiduous in whatever charge he was 
willing to assume. As a Director of the Worcester Bank 
for more than fifty years, and its President for nearly forty, 
and as President for quarter of a century of the Worcester 
County Savings Institution, he must, by his inflexible integ- 
rity, his financial skill and prudence, and his habit of close 
personal attention to everything within the range of his 
responsibility, have done no little toward giving tone and 
character in Worcester to this department of business, in 
which we have seen elsewhere with sad frequency not only 
atrocious breaches of trust, but cases of negligence only 
and hardly less criminal, on the part of men who seemed to 
merit confidence till they had shamefully betrayed it. 

Of the Worcester Free Public Library he was for many 
years a Director, for eight years President of the Board, 
to a large extent a liberal benefactor, and always in full 
sympathy with the method of administration, by which 
more has been done for the diffusion of knowledge and the 
creation of a taste for pure and good literature than by any 
other similar institution in the world. 

The Worcester County Horticultural Society owes, if not 
its continued existence, its relief from disabling embarrass- 
ments, to his generous and munificent interposition at times 
of special need, while it enjoyed for a long series of years 
his valuable services as an officer. 

Most of all, the Worcester County Free Institute of 
Industrial Science has been indel)ted to him, not indeed 
for its establishment, but for its high scientific and literary 



Eulogy. 101 

reputation, for the breadth and thoroughness of the educa- 
tion which it affords, for its elevated tone of manners and 
morals, for the conspicuous and honored place which it 
holds among our institutions of learning, and for its eminent 
usefulness in the shaping of character for successive classes 
of young men, who, as employers and directors of labor, 
become propagandists of whatever salutary influences they 
carry with them into the outside world. His relation to 
this institution is characteristic. With the funds that he 
bestowed upon it, very largely exceeding the aggregate of 
all other gifts, he might have established a seminary that 
should transmit his own name to posterity, and should far 
transcend the best that could be done by the generous dona- 
tion of the actual founder. On the other hand, he adopted 
the founder's plan, and rendered its realization possible, 
notwithstanding a great depreciation of money after the 
endowment had been made, — careful always to place in the 
foreground the honored memory of Boynton and Washburn, 
and claiming for himself only the privilege of serving in 
the way indicated by their deeds of gift. And what a 
noble and efficient service has it been ! As President, he 
has filled in all matters of importance the place which 
belongs to the president of a college, with that of the 
steward in addition, anticipating all the financial needs of 
the Institute, applying his consummate practical wisdom to 
its economical interests, holding, without assuming, because 
he could not but hold, its intellectual headship, exercising 
the utmost wariness and discretion in the choice of teachers, 
sustaining their authority and influence, rendering himself 
a beneficent power among the pupils, stimulating them to 
diligence, mental enterprise and high moral aims and pur- 



102 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

poses, and making them feel, each and all, that they had in 
him a friend and a cordial well-wisher, who appreciated all 
merit at its full value, and who would never fail in their 
need to bestow upon them his countenance and aid. The 
annual connnencement of this institution has always been 
graced by his presence, and enriched by his addresses, 
often elaborate, always wise, pertinent and timely. Few 
series of College Baccalaureates would bear comparison 
with these addresses, in their range of thought, in their 
abundance of seedling thoughts dropped where they could 
not but fructify, in attiuence of literary and classical illus- 
tration, in fine, in materials carefully selected from the 
hoarded wealth of a life equally active and studious, and 
specially adapted to the counsel, admonition and instruc- 
tion of young men just entering on their several careers of 
lifework. The l)eauty of his addresses consists in the self- 
revelation unconsciously made in them, in their singleness 
and directness of purpose, and in the ease and naturalness 
with which a vast diversit^^ of topics is made contributory 
to the demands and to the unflagging interest of these 
occasions. Many of us, too, can recall with pleasure those 
commencement evening receptions, with his warm and 
hearty welcome to students past and present, and to the 
constantly increasing circle of those who either felt special 
interest in the anniversary, or craved the privilege of being 
the guests of a host so loved and honored. It will be 
remembered that it was at the last commencement of this 
institution that he made his last public appearance, and 
uttered what it seemed only too probable would be his 
parting words of counsel and congratulation, and that he 
could not be persuaded to omit the usual gathering at his 



Eulogy. 103 

house on the ensuing evening, or to delegate to younger 
hands the welcoming of the crowd of visitors. 

While thus devoted to the institution of which he has 
been more than the founder, he retained through life his 
loyalty to Harvard College, which in 1875 honored itself 
and him equally by conferring on him the degree of Doctor 
of Laws. Beside occasional contributions for current uses, 
he endowed its library with a permanent fund for the pur- 
chase of classical books. A year ago he closed his twelve 
years, or two terms, on its Board of Overseers, mem- 
bers being by law ineligible for three consecutive terms. 
He was for eighteen years a Trustee, and for fifteen years 
Treasurer of the Peabody Museum of American Archae- 
ology at Cambridge, in which he took a very great interest, 
and with his wonted punctuality, though evidently too 
feeble for the journey, he attended the last meeting of the 
Board, during the week preceding the Cambridge Com- 
mencement. He was one of the oldest members of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, was a not infrequent 
attendant at its meetings, and was zealous in the promotion 
of its objects, though through a different medium. 

He was interested in various associations for religious 
and charitable purposes, and at a stated meeting of one of 
these held in Boston at ten o'clock of a morning in the late 
autumn, he has almost always made his appearance on the 
stroke of the clock, while those who live hard b}^ find the 
hour too early. Long the Treasurer of the Worcester 
County Bible Society, he has for nearly a quarter of a 
century been one of the Vice-Presidents of the JNIassachu- 
setts Bible Society, and by far the largest annual donor 
to its funds. 



104 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

In this Society of ours we have preeminent reason for 
enduring gratitude to him whose departure is our unspeak- 
able loss. Hardly any of us can remember the time when 
he has not sat as chief among us. For forty-four of the 
seventy-two years of the existence of our Society he was a 
member ; for forty-one years, of its council ; for thirty 
years, its president. We express l)ut a small part of our 
indelitedness to him, when we say that his munificence has 
Ijeen, not contributory, but essential to our fair show and 
exterior prosperity. Money, and brick and mortar are 
needed, l)ut utterly inadequate for a work like ours, which, 
more than any other de{)artment of intellectual labor, 
demands such knowledge as comes not by intuition or 
reflection, but only by painstaking research, together with 
antecedent conversance with the field of investigation, and 
with ability to discriminate between that which age makes 
venerable and precious and that to which even pre-mundane 
antiquity could impart neither interest nor value. Our late 
President possessed these qualities in the fullest measure, 
and to him do we owe it, in great part, that the labor per- 
formed under the auspices of our Society has always 
yielded a harvest of sheaves worth binding and keeping. 
His own contributions to our Proceedings commence with 
his presidency, and outnumber its years. Several of them 
are elaborate papers, and among these I might name the 
Memorial of Governor John Endecott, which is second to 
no monograph of its kind in the judicial weighing of 
evidence, in fair appreciation of character, and in compre- 
hension of the state of society at a time so remote from ours. 

I find, also, that these papers embrace a very large 
proportion of our necrology, and of the obituaries of such 



Eulogy. 105 

public men as claimed our special notice. As the case 
seemed to demand, these notices have sometimes been con- 
densed biographies ; sometimes, brief sketches ; sometimes, 
resolutions of commemoration, respect and sympathy. 
Those who have attempted this task know how difficult it 
is, and how delicately it needs to be performed, so as at 
once to shun unmeaning or inappropriate panegyric, and to 
single out the salient points of merit and the actual reasons 
for loving or reverent regard. Here our President was 
peculiarly happy, equally just and kind in his estimate 
of characier, giving no false praise, but never omitting or 
attenuating any trait of genius or of moral worth, and 
making encomium all the more emphatic and expressive by 
a grace of diction that betrayed by its perfectness the care- 
ful literary labor which its simplicity and naturalness might 
else have concealed. 

I forget not the faithful work that has been wrought for 
our Society by those whom I know only by tradition from 
earlier members, by those who have already shown us 
where we must look for our future prosperty, and, 
especially, by my very dear friend and classmate, the late 
librarian. Yet we shall come together, certainly so long as 
the elder among us live, with a sense of vacancy and void, 
as we miss that benign presence, that meek and modest 
dignity, that unstudied courtesy, that ripened wisdom, 
which have given the tone and spirit to our meetings, and 
have borne so large a part in shaping the character of the 
Society. 

In enumerating the posts of public service which Mr. 
Salisbury has held we give but a very imperfect account of 
his life-work. He kept his time so full that it was elastic, 
15 



106 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

and would always stretch to new demands upon it ; for it 
is they who do the most that the most readily find room for 
more. Whatever was worthy of his cooperation never failed 
of his help in counsel and in action ; and I cannot learn, 
that when his gait grew feeljle and every efi'ort must have 
been a burden and a weariness, there was any slackening of 
his industry. 

But a life-work consists not in the things that a man 
does, but even more in the selfhood that he puts into them. 
Acts are small multiplicands ; the actor's self, the much 
greater multiplier, and thus the chief factor in the product. 
It is, therefore, hard to estimate, impossible to overesti- 
mate, the efficient force, always in Ijehalf of the true, the 
right, the generous, the noble, that has been withdrawn from 
this comnmnity, and from all our venerable friend's various 
circles of influence and spheres of duty by his departure, — 
a force, too, which had been constantly growing, and never 
was more vigorous than when through the brief death- 
shadow it emerged into immortality. Even in doing the 
same things his was no routine life, no self-returning 
round, but an enlarging and ascending spiral. We all saw 
that his decline of life could be so termed only as to l)odily 
capacity. In all else it was culmination ; and we never so 
felt how severe a loss we should sustain in his going from 
us as when we began to doubt in parting from him whether 
we should ever see him again. 

Yet, while no man ever made more than he did of the 
closing years of a lengthened life, he looked upon death as 
in God's good time to be welcomed and rejoiced in. I had 
last year a letter from him, which I reperuse with the more 
tender and grateful interest now that the hand that wrote it 



Eulogy. 107 

is forever still, and from which I cannot forbear copying a 
few sentences as illustrating the way in which he would 
have had us regard his removal from us : 

" The text, ' Who hath abolished death,' and other simi- 
lar language in the Bible, and in ordinary Christian utter- 
ances contemplate death associated with human weakness 
and wickedness as that which the teachings and hopes of 
Christianity will conquer and abolish. But it is beyond 
question that death is currently represented as an interrup- 
tion, and a painful, frightful calamity, in itself, without 
regard to that which may follow, and this opinion occurs 
in the abundant literature of our day, when so much atten- 
tion is given to the facts of physics and the experience of 
life that are inconsistent with it. Death is an incident in 
striking analogy with the dissolutions of inanimate matter, 
whose improved reproductions show the probability of the 
resurrection of man. The human body in its best preser- 
vation is subject to be worn out, and disabled for its 
purpose ; and physicians tell us that the end of its course, 
when free from complications, is attended with evidence, 
commonly of relief, often of pleasure. A few days ago, in 
talking with a friend, an earnest clergyman and a scholar, I 
alluded to the blessing of death, and he was shocked and 
started in his chair as if I had spoken that which was 
false and repulsive. But without this ministry the human 
race could not rise in knowledge and happiness above 
the shepherd tribes on the plains of Mamre, restrained 
by the authority of the patriarchs. And death is unde- 
niably a blessing in individual experience. If the gene- 
rations did not pass, the development of the young- 
would be impeded, if not prevented, and social order 
could not exist. Then the moral influence for which 
decay and death give occasion cannot be overlooked. 
The false estimate of death supports, if it does not 
originate, another error, the desirableness of a long life. 



108 Memorial of Steplien Salidmry. 

This opinion is so nearly universal in literature and 
among living men, that it may be referred to the suggestion 
of a wholesome instinct. Yet in the few instances in which 
four score years are exempt from the ordinary burden of 
labor and sorrow, old age is not an improved condition of 
life. I will not enlarge on the unhappiness of the con- 
sciousness of insufficient and decaying powers, and of the 
pain of standing in the way of the young, who, in reverent 
and loving service, forbear to unfold their faculties and take 
their place in society until death gives the opportunity. I 
have said enough to prove that death is not only the 

' Friend to the wretch whom ever,v friend forsalces,' 
but a friend to every human being." 

That our friend could write thus shows that there was no 
need for him so to write. No mind impaired by age ever 
passed such calm and cheerful judgment on itself; and 
next to the assurance that death has been to him but the 
gate to heaven, our chief consolation in his going from us 
when and as he went, is that he was spared the disabling 
infirmity and the enfeebled brain-power which could hardly 
have failed to overtake him with added years. Far rather 
would we miss him while he filled his place than that he 
should have survived the capacity of filling it. 

In the estimate of Mr. Salisbury's character I am dis- 
posed to place first what is commonly put last, as if it were 
accessory, and not fundamental. He was a profoundly 
religious man, a diligent and earnest reader of Holy Scrip- 
ture, firm in his Christian faith, constant in the support and 
reverent observance of Christian institutions and ordinan- 
ces, walking humbly with his God, and making the Word 
of God, written and incarnate, the rule and the inspiration 
of his life. Hence its blended strength and beaut3\ 



Eulogy. 109 

His habits and conduct were based on fixed principles. 
Integrity was his robe and his diadem. Not only in the 
transaction of business, but in his judgment and his treat- 
ment of others and of all men, truth and uprightness were 
his law, and we cannot conceive of any deflection on his 
part from justice, nay, not even in that broad sense in 
which justice is but wise, impartial, comprehensive charity. 

He obeyed the apostolic precept. Honor all men. Fine, 
gentle, considerate courtesy was as natural and spontaneous 
to him as breathing. He assumed nothing on the score of 
position, nor yet in these latter years, on that of age. 
Humanity meant more to him than its differences, and was 
always a sufficient claim on his respect. He was not con- 
descending ; for he did not consider himself as stooping in 
order to hold friendly intercourse with any human being. 
His bearing was always dignified, for it could not be other- 
wise ; but his was the dignity of blended self-respect which 
he never laid aside, and kindly regard which ignored the 
artificial distinctions of society. Thus while there was no 
need of his looking up to, it was impossible for him to look 
down upon, any one. His whole social influence, I do not 
mean in what would be called his own circle, but in his 
conversance with all sorts and conditions of men, tended 
toward the levelling upward, the raising of the grade of 
those who stood toward him in any relation however 
humble, he thus doing his part of the work which properly 
belongs to the institutions and citizens of a republic, where 
there should be room neither for aristocrats nor for pariahs. 

His generosity was large and broad, and at the same time 
careful and discriminating. His wealth he regarded as a 
sacred trust, and he was solicitous equally to avoid doing 



110 Memorial of Stephen 8oUshury. 

harm <and to effect real and substantial good by its use. As 
a giver, he was averse from ostentation, and when the 
magnitude of his gifts made publicity inevitable, it was 
never of his own choice. His bounty flowed in more 
numerous and more diverse channels than it would be easy 
to trace. Several instances have come to my knowledge, in 
which need and worth — remote and entirely unrelated to 
him — were promptly relieved. I have also known instan- 
ces in which applications which he might have strong self- 
ward motives to regard favorably, have been dismissed, 
because he considered the ends sought either as unattain- 
able, or as of doubtful value. I learn that he has not only 
been always ready to meet the demands of actual want and 
sufl'ering, which for one in his position Avas hardly less a 
necessity than a duty, but that he has been assiduous in 
helping those who have done their utmost to help them- 
selves, in aiding modest and obscure enterprise, in encour- 
aging industry and thrift, in giving the needed assistance to 
young men of promise, whether in the pursuit of education 
or in active callings, — charities which, unlike those that 
perish with the using, yield a permanent and growing 
revenue. He was evidently solicitous, also, so to bestow 
his benefactions as not to supersede the liberality of others. 
He put a just value on the independence of the institutions 
which he most befriended, which over-endowment by a 
single hand would both enslave and cripple, while their 
fresh and vigorous life is sustained and fed by a more 
extended clientelage in the present and the hope of it in the 
future. In line, he greatly enhanced the value of his large, 
varied and incessant l)enefactions by applying to them the 
wise and fruitful economy which characterized his manage- 
ment of his private affairs. 



Eulogy. Ill 

A life so true, so generous, so useful, and so full of work 
could not have been maintained without the practice of 
punctuality and its kindred tribe of subsidiary virtues, — 
not by any means minor virtues, as they are sometimes 
called, but essential to perfect truth, honesty and kindness, 
and while seemingly devoid of sentiment, possessing a 
winning grace and beauty when made the frame of a faith- 
ful and noble life. 

Mr. Salisbury's mind, like his moral nature, was devel- 
oped symmetrically, with ability rather than with genius, 
but with ability which was wisdom and strength in what- 
ever he did, which grew by constant exercise, and was 
never more conspicuous and efficient than when close under 
the shadow of death. As a man of letters he was a peer 
of the foremost, if we except those who, as teachers or 
writers, make letters their profession. He was familiar 
with the best English literature, and with not a few choice 
authors whom most of us know only by name. He was a 
lifelong reader and admirer of the Latin classics ; and after 
he had become an old man he revived his knowledge of the 
Greek, and found great delight in its wealth of epic, lyric 
and dramatic poetry. He had no little conversance with 
the various departments of physical science, and was thus 
kept in intimate relation with the instructors and classes 
in his favorite educational institution. His knowledge of 
American history, archeology and bibliography was exten- 
sive, and, so far as it extended, accurate and thorough. Of 
the literature in and of the Bible he was not merely a 
devout reader, but to no small degree a critical student. 

He wrote with care, less for rhetorical effect than for 
clearness and detiniteness of statement. His style had the 



112 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

simple dignity and grace that belonged to his entire charac- 
ter, and was therefore the natural outcome of his thought 
and feeling. I can see no reason why, if he had chosen, he 
might not have Ijeen successful and even eminent as an 
author ; for in whatever he wrote he showed himself master 
of his sul)ject and equal to the occasion. 

In some respects Mr. Salisbury's life-record is almost 
unique. I wish it Avere not so. Here is a young man of 
excellent ability, highly educated, with ample resources, 
who, instead of seeking or making for himself a place in 
the world, quietly seats himself in the place already made 
for him, indeed, to which he might seem to have been born. 
It is not a large place, or one of exacting demands. But 
he grows, and his place grows with him. He has more and 
more lofty views and aims, and his place develops ever 
higher capacities, on which those views rest, in which those 
aims find scope. He ])ecomes gradually, but by uninter- 
mitted progress, the centre of a broad and still broadening 
circumference of institutions and interests, trusts and chari- 
ties, the cynosure, within an extended and constantly 
enlarging circle, of all in need of counsel, encouragement or 
aid, doing good in more forms and ways than one could 
imagine till the void made l)y his departure, beneficent, 
serviceable and useful in a degree and measure certainly 
unsurpassed, and probably within the knowledge of most 
or all of us unequalled, realizing in the eyes and in the 
remembrance of all who knew him the ideal of that 
noisiest style of man, the Christian scholar and gentleman. 

I have thus given you a sketch of our late President, not 
in the glowing colors in which my loving thought might 



Eulogy. 113 

clothe his form after many years of pleasant intercourse 
and the frequent enjoyment of his cordial hospitality, but 
as he must have appeared to the outside world, in his daily 
walk of faithful duty, of kindly converse and of benefi- 
cent service. His fails of being a striking character 
because of its fully rounded perfectness. Mountains look 
low from table-land mountain-high ; they need a plane on 
the sea-level to appear all that they are. The best characters 
lack prominent traits, because there are no defects, infirmi- 
ties and weaknesses to give prominence to the features of 
their excelling goodness. Ghiar' oscuro is as essential to 
attractive character-painting as it is to a picturesque land- 
scape ; and where there are no deep shadows, we are hardly 
aware of the intenseness and brilliancy of the light. But 
in this picture of one so profoundly revered, so tenderly 
loved, there lives not the man who knows where or how to 
paint in the shadows. Let it then have place in our record 
in the pure, white light in which our friend will live, with 
every one of us, in enduring and grateful memory. 



16 



MEMOIR 



BY HON. JOHN D. WASHBUKN. 



[Reprinted from Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Societj^ 
New Series. Vol.11. (May Meeting) , 1885.] 



MEMOIR 



npHE conditions and circumstances which attended Mr. 
Salisbury's birth, his life and his death, were unique. 
It is impossible to think of him without recalling some of 
them. Their contemplation gives rise to startling contrasts 
between the character which actually was, and that which 
was likely to be, developed by and under them. He was 
born in a small and beautiful interior town, containing 
hardly more than two thousand inhabitants, on a great 
domain now not improperly termed ancestral, in the midst 
of a community small in population, yet marked by high 
standards of social, literary, and professional attainment. 
His life extended through a period of more than eighty-six 
years. He died on the same tract of land on which he was 
born, and within a few rods of the exact spot, never having 
lived on any other than this, which he had inherited as sole 
heir. This large estate, by a rare coincidence, he trans- 
mitted to his successor as sole heir, though in a common- 
wealth where the system of primogeniture is unknown. 
He died in a city of nearly seventy thousand inhabitants. 
He had thus seen its population increase thirty-fold, the 
pastures of his boyhood become the site of a multifarious and 
prosperous industry, to the establishment and development 
of which his intelligent co-operation had largely contributed, 
and which, in its turn, had largely repaid his interest and 



118 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

support, increasing the value of the various sections of his 
estate "some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred" 
fold. He was cradled in wealth, though not in luxury ; 
he lived in wealth, l)ut not in lavishness or display; he 
died in the midst of, and as the possessor of wealth greater 
at the time of his death than at any earlier day, yet in the 
same simplicity in which he had always lived. Born to a 
position of influence and social prominence, he maintained 
that position steadily to the end. No social or political 
jealousies assailed him or disturbed his peace. He was 
never engaged in active business, and its rivalries and fierce 
competitions never reached him. More than perhaps any 
other citizen of Massachusetts, he resembled in his position 
and opportunities an English nobleman, in the great heredi- 
tary interests he controlled, and as the unquestioned head 
of the social and cultivated life of the community. He 
maintained his great influence chiefly because his life was 
so difterent from what might have been anticipated, and 
was at each successive period a fresh and gratifying sur- 
prise. In youth, in manhood, and in age, he was always 
doing more and better things than expectation, or even 
hope, could possibly have looked for. Hence the story of 
his life, related simply and without panegyric or rhetorical 
adornment, is at once a eulogy and an encouragement, — a 
eulogy of himself, and an encouragement to all who start in 
the race of life handicapped, not by the ills of poverty, but 
])y the burdens and dangers of wealth, so often paralyzing 
to effort and depressing to honorable and unselfish ambition. 
If it l)e true, as alleged by Dr. Johnson, that 

" Slow rises worth by poverty depressed," 
not less true is it that, in the great majority of instances. 



Memoir: 119 

slow is the development of intellectual life and power 
weighted down by the burden of large inherited possessions. 

Stephen Salisbury was born in Worcester, in the old 
Salisbury mansion on Lincoln Square, on the 8th of March, 
1798. He was the only son of Stephen Salisbury, who 
was the son of Nicholas Salisbury, and who came to Wor- 
cester from Boston in 1767. The elder Stephen Salisbury 
was a merchant of that old school which combined the 
business of importer and distributor. The business was 
carried on in a one-story building on the Salisbury estate, 
but its operations extended widely through the county and 
State. The elder Salisbury died in 1829, at the age of 
eighty-two. 

The subject of this memoir received his earlier education 
in the public schools of the town of Worcester, and after- 
wards went to the Leicester Academy, then a somewhat 
famous school of preparation, to be fitted for college. He 
entered Harvard in 1813, and was graduated in the class of 
1817. The present writer had the honor to meet the 
survivors of that class many years after their graduation, 
and to carry to them the greetings of the class of 1853, 
then celebrating its twentieth anniversary by a dinner over 
which he had the fortune to preside. Late in the evening 
it was learned that the class of 1817 was dining with Mr. 
Salisbury under the same roof. The presiding officer of the 
class of 1853 was deputed to bear its greetings to its seniors 
by thirty-six years. The scene was a memorable one, and 
never to be forgotten. Mr, Salisbury occupied the chair. 
On one side of him was seated George Bancroft, and on the 
other Caleb Gushing, — names illustrious in literature and 
jurisprudence, — and around the board sat President Woods, 



120 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

George B. Emerson, and other surviving classmates, not 
unworthy associates of men so eminent as these. To the 
brief address of the president of the younger class,- Mr. 
Salisbury made a reply, crowding into the space of a few 
minutes many reminiscences of college days, with express- 
ions of loyalty to Alma Mater and to the cause of sound 
learning in general. He closed with a line of Virgil, which 
he said he would adopt as the motto of his class, but which 
may well l)e quoted here as the motto and key-note of his 
own long life : — 

" Mobilitate viget, vii-esque acquirit euudo." 
For his classmates, as classmates, he had that cordial 
regard which was characteristic of the kindly men of that 
early day, when classes were small and the members person- 
ally and even intimately known to one another. He not 
unfrequently entertained them at his hospitable board, and 
in his will left to several of them substantial tokens of his 
remembrance and affection. He was always loyal to the 
University, though, as a representative of the older methods 
of education, he deprecated the modern sybtem of elective 
studies, never hesitating to avow his conviction that for 
those whose selections must necessarily be made without 
the aid and guidance of experience of their own, it was far 
better that the earlier courses of study be prescribed by the 
experience of others. He was a member of the Board of 
Overseers from 1871 to 1883. A great lover of the ancient 
languages, and familiar with their literature, he made, in 
1858, a donation to the Library, "to be expended in the 
purchase of books in the Greek and Latin languages, and 
in l)Ooks in other languages illustrating Greek and Latin 
books." In 1875 the Corporation conferred on him the 
honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. 



Memoir. 121 

It is the object of this memoir, not so much to state the 
bare facts of Mr. Salisbury's life in chronological order, as 
to show by the statement of them how much he accom- 
plished in the various departments of usefulness in which 
his sympathies were enlisted, and to the advancement of 
whi(;h his hand was so diligently set. Thus, in the present 
connection, his contributions to the cause of education and 
sound learning may be considered. It will be seen, by the 
contemplation of them, that the story of his life does not 
tend to prove or illustrate the correctness of the position of 
certain modern critics, that classical education necessarily 
alienates its votaries from active interest in the practical 
training of men in other departments of knowledge, or that 
other theory, that Harvard University teaches her sons, 
directly or by implication, to limit the range of their 
sympathies to those with whom elegance in letters is the 
chief object of ambition. 

He was a member of the first Board of Directors of the 
Worcester Free Public Library, one of the most beneficent 
of the institutions of that city, the object of which was to 
bring home to the humblest of her citizens the opportunities 
of cultivation which had been formerly reserved for people 
of wealth or easy circumstances. He was a patient and 
laborious member of this Board for twelve years, and for 
eight years its President ; and he only left it when the 
Library was an accomplished and permanent success. 

Although not the literal founder of the Worcester County 
Free Institute of Industrial Science, he was the first, and 
till the day of his death the only. President of the Board of 
Trustees, and its largest pecuniary benefactor. This is not 
an institution for the study of the classics, but for instruc- 
17 



122 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

tion in science and its application to the useful arts. His 
interest in its success never failed nor flagged ; and that 
success, signal as it has been, was probably due more to 
his intelligent and constant support than to any other one 
cause. He was present at and presided over every annual 
Commencement, from the year 1871 up to and including 
the year 1884. He was thus, for so many years, liberally 
devoting his time, his means, and his influence to the 
promotion of those studies which savor not of the cloister, 
the library, the forum, but of the workshop, the laboratory, 
the factory, and the railroad. 

He was elected a member of this Society in 1858, and 
was a frequent and interested attendant on its meetings. 
But his principal interest in this general department of 
learning was with the American Antiquarian Society, of 
which he was forty-four years a member, and for thirty 
years the President. His contributions to its funds were 
large and frequent, and to its Proceedings many and valua- 
ble. It was what he did for that distinguished institution 
which chiefly gave him his reputation among scholars and 
men of letters and learning throughout the country, and, 
to some extent at least, beyond the sea. And while he did 
nmch for the Society in the way of material aid, in contri- 
butions to its Proceedings and in abundant and elegant 
hospitality towards its members, it is only just to add that 
the Society's cordial appreciation and support were a large 
recompense to him, the value of which he was always ready 
and glad to recognize. 

For fifteen years he was the Treasurer, and for eighteen 
years a Trustee, of the Peabody Museum of American 
Archaeology at Cambridge, for many years a Trustee of the 



Memoir. 123 

Leicester Academy, and he occupied the relation of adviser 
or contributor to many other educational institutions. And 
in behalf of that other kind of education, the importance of 
which is so fully recognized in the abstract, but to which 
in modern times less practical attention is paid than in 
earlier days, — religious and Biblical education, — his ser- 
vice was a permanent and valuable one. He was for many 
years one of the Vice-Presidents of the Massachusetts 
Bible Society, the largest contributor to its funds, and also 
Treasurer of the Worcester County Bible Society. Of 
many other associations of a public or quasi-public charac- 
ter — as, for example, the Horticultural and Agricultural 
Societies — he was a frequent benefactor and a constant 
friend. 

It is now proper to consider the relations of one so far 
removed from his earliest youth from the necessities of 
labor, and who was never known to receive pecuniary 
compensation for any service rendered, to what is known 
as "business." He held strictly to the doctrine that every 
man of wealth should be the manager of his own afiairs, 
and actively conducted the details of the care of his large 
estate. Yet he found time, in the midst of all that care, to 
render as much service to several financial institutions as is 
usually given by those to whom such service is a chief 
means of support. 

After leaving college, he studied law with the late Samuel 
McGregor Burnside, a practitioner of eminence, and was 
admitted to the Worcester Bar, of which, at the time of his 
death, he was the senior member. It is doubtful if he at 
any time intended to enter on the practice of the profession, 
but he believed that the study of the law afforded the best 



124 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

training for one whose life was probably to be passed in the 
care of important interests or in the leading positions of 
pu])lic or private life. For fifty-one years he was a direc- 
tor in the Worcester Bank, and was for thirty-nine years 
its president, succeeding in that important trust the Hon. 
Daniel \\'aldo in 1845. In the directors' room of that 
institution he was to be found in daily attendance, render- 
ing the same services that might properly have been 
expected from a conscientious salaried official. For twenty- 
live years he was the President of the Worcester County 
Institution for Savings, one of the largest trusts in the 
Commonwealth, in which position also he was the successor 
of Mr. Waldo. For nearly forty years he was a director 
in the Worcester and Nashua Eailroad Company, and for 
a time its president. 

Mr. Salisbury never had a taste for public office. He 
did not decline to serve, for short periods, in positions of 
importance, legislative or municipal : but even in the days 
of the old Whig primacy and dignity in this Common- 
wealth, such places had little charm for him : in this later 
day of more promiscuous political association and less 
agreeai>le personal contacts, they would probably have been 
inlolerable to him. He treated every man, whatever his 
occupation or education, with due respect and considerate 
kindness ; but his standards of personal character were 
very high, and he could never have brought himself into 
complicity in political barterings, or exchanges of influence 
for mutual advantage. He was a Selectman of the town 
of Worcester, an Alderman of the city, for two j^ears a 
Representative in the Legislature, for two years a Senator, 
and at two national elections a Presidential Elector. 



Memoir. 125 

He was thrice married. To his first wife, Eebekah Scott, 
daughter of Aaron and Phila Dean, of Charlestown, New 
Hampshire, he was married on the 7th of November, 1833. 
Of her was born his only son, Stephen Sahsbury, a member 
of this Society. She died July 24, 1843. His second 
wife was Nancy Hoard, widow of Captain George Lincoln, 
who was a son of Governor Levi Lincoln, and was killed 
in the Mexican War. She died September 4, 1852. His 
third and last wife was Mary Grosvenor, widow of the 
Hon. Edward D. Bangs. She died September 25, 1864; 
and for the last twent}^ years of his life, he occupied, with 
his son, the present mansion-house, which was built by him 
in 1837, and stands, as has been said, but a few rods from 
the original Salisbury Mansion in which he was born. 

In the consideration which it is now proposed to give to 
Mr. Salisbury's intellectual quality and attainments, it will 
not be claimed for him that he was, in the full sense of that 
term, an exact scholar. That characterization should be 
reserved for men who devote themselves almost exclusively 
to scholarly pursuits, and who are found principally in the 
ranks of professional teachers, or students and writers in 
the special departments of human knowledge. But he 
maintained that high grade of general scholarship which 
belongs to and marks the cultivated and accomplished 
gentleman. His contributions made at various times to the 
Proceedings of the Antiquarian Society well illustrate this, 
as also do the daily habits of his life in this regard, with 
which his near personal friends were familiar. A brief 
reference to some of those contributions will not be out of 
place in this memoir. It may be said, however, in general, 
that he wrote in a clear and simple style, with occasionally 



126 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

a quaint turn of thought or phrase, savoring a little of the 
form and manner of the ancient school. He was a lover of, 
and familiar with, the English Classics of the earlier part 
of the eighteenth century, and that familiarity revealed 
itself not unfrequently in the style of his composition. He 
had little imagination, and did not rely even on what he 
had in the preparation of historical papers, or in the 
presentation of historical facts ; an honest way of dealing, 
which genuine students of history appreciate wherever they 
find it. In almost every volume, indeed in almost every 
number, of the Proceedings since his accession to the presi- 
dency, will be found some memorial of deceased members, 
some comments on the needs of the Society, the condition 
of its library, the results of its studies and researches, 
which are fairly representative of the mental characteristics 
of their author. Two or three of them are entitled to 
especial mention, as being not only valuable contributions 
to the literature of Archfeology, but as illustrating the tone 
and quality of his mind, and the scope and variety of his 
intellectual tastes. 

"An Essay on the Time of making the Statues of Christ 
and Moses," written by Mr. Salisbury, was read by him 
before the Council, September 30, 1861, and, by request 
of the Council, read before the Society at the Annual Meet- 
ing, October 21, 1861. It is a critical and graceful analysis 
of historical probabilities, marked by a rare appreciation of 
the artistic quality and greatness of Michael Angelo. 
Especially is it marked by that religious and reverent tone 
"which was so modestly conspicuous in the conduct of the 
author's life, and may be observed, with more or less of 
distinctness, in all he said or wrote, particularly in the 



Memoir. 127 

Report of the Council in 1863, on "The Opposition of 
Science, falsely so called, to Revealed Religion." In this 
last essay is a clear indication at once of the dignified 
earnestness of his religious convictions and the liberality 
with which he welcomed all aids to the interpretation and 
true understanding of those portentous disclosures of the 
Divine will and purposes which affect and control the 
destiny of man in this world and in the eternal world to 
come. 

"Troy and Homer: Remarks on the Discoveries of Dr. 
Heinrich Schliemann in the Troad," a Report of the Council 
to the American Antiquarian Society in 1875, is a masterly 
discussion, on which alone a claim for its author to literary 
and classical distinction might well be based. It illustrates 
the characteristics of Mr. Salisbury's scholarship, his warm 
devotion to what may be called the old school of classical 
study, and his impression of the soundness of some modern 
views as to the merits of the Greek language. The follow- 
ing extract shows something of his feeling and also his 
power of expression on themes like these : — 

"The offer of Dr. Schliemann to give to his contempo- 
raries a lively sense of the reality of the heroes and inci- 
dents described by Homer has not excited the interest and 
enthusiasm which would have greeted it a hundred years 
ago. The great Epics no longer retain the first place, 
though their dethronement has left it vacant. The overturn, 
that men call progress, has crushed to earth for a time the 
greatest benefactors of our own race, and their noblest 
works. It would be instructive to recall the names of this 
noble army of martyrs. Herodotus, the father of history, 
was not long since scorned as the father of lies ; and he 
stood for a while in mute merit on the shelf, until respect 
and authority have been restored to him. And at this 



128 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

moment the most perfect dramatist of all time is assaulted, 
to rob him of his sock and his buskin, to give them to one 
who never deserved them and could never wear them. 
Homer has suffered the common fate. It is in vain that he 
is always genial and attractive, elevating in sentiment, and 
in moral purity superior to the customs of his age. He 
scatters broadcast gems of truth that sparkle with new light 
as human intelligence is increased. 

' Age caunot wither him, nor custom stale 
His iutinite variety.' 

Philosophers and historians who have for the longest time 
been honored with the confidence and admiration of man- 
kind, appeal to Homer as their oracle. And if modern 
statesmen would acquaint themselves with the policy and 
the divine right of kings, they may go back to the ancient 
compendium which Alexander declared to be, in his opin- 
ion, 'a perfect portable treasure of military virtue and 
knowledge.' Though civil freedom was then unknown, 
Homer has expressed the value of personal liberty in words 
that cannot be forgotten : — 

' Jove fixed it certain, tliat whatever day 
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.' 

Odyssey (Pope), xvii. 822. 

There are other causes of this change than the caprice of 
fashion, the 'giddy and unfirm' fancies of men, to which 
literature, not less than love, is subjected. The Greek 
language has been one of the foundations of the intellectual 
power of past time. But now the learned and unlearned 
have conspired to deprive it of its pre-eminence, and to 
restrict or discontinue its use in colleges and schools of the 
highest grade. The first effect of this is already perceived, 
and Greek literature has faded from the knowledge of 
English readers. So far as the privileges of scholarship 
are concerned, this movement is of little importance. 
Scholars will only be more conspicuous, if they enjoy a 



Memoir. 129 

culture in which the active community have no share. 
When the teaching- of Greek is continued in our schools, 
the Homeric poems are not, as formerly, studied and 
committed to memory more than any other books in 
the language. They have given way to works of a later 
period, that are fitted to teach the language in its systematic 
and perfect form : and these influences, adverse to these 
poems, are strengthened by the criticism that suggests the 
probability that an indefinite number of Homers have made 
up unfitted parts which for thousands of years have been 
admired as well-framed structures, and that the pictures 
which they present are not historical or even poetical 
representations of human passions and experience, but mere 
allegorical myths. And to all these are added charges of 
contradiction, inconsistency, and general want of skill, 
with many specifications." 

These charges and specifications are then taken up in 
order, and discussed with an earnestness and vigor which 
must challenge the admiration of the reader, whatever his 
impression as to the correctness of the conclusions reached 
by the author. 

His devotion to the truth in history, and denial of any 
room for imagination in her annals, is well illustrated by a 
memorable contribution to the archives of the American 
Antiquarian Society at its Annual Meeting, October 21, 
1873, entitled "A Memorial of Governor John Endecott." 
A single extract may properly find place here : — 

"When History takes her place among the Muses, and 
wields the witchery of imagination and passion, she gains a 
power over the opinions and memory of men that she cannot 
have with the dry annals of truth. It is a glorious privi- 
lege ' when it moves in charity and turns on the poles of 
truth.' But the license of a poet gives him no right 

' To point a moral or adorn a tale ' 
18 



130 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

by the traditions of party strife, which are not supported 
by better authorities. Governor Endecott has now, in the 
minds of some people of the best education, not the charac- 
ter that Governor Winthrop and Morton and Hubbard and 
other contemporaries have awarded to him, but the cold 
and cruel image in which our two most admired poets have 
represented him. In the New England tragedy entitled 
'John Endecott,' Mr. Longfellow has made so prominent 
the gloomy characteristics imputed to the Governor in 
Sewall's History, that few will rememl^er that the poet also 
says : — 

' He is a man, both loving and severe ; 
A tender heart ; a will inflexible. 
None ever loved him more than I have loved him. 
He is an upright and a just man 
In all things save his treatment of the Quakers.' 

And these friendly words are turned to gall by this 
response, put into the mouth of the Governor's son : — 

' Yet have I found him cruel and unjust 
Even as a father.' 

After search and inquiry, 1 can discover no evidence that 
the disposition of Governor Endecott towards his children 
was different from the affection which he manifested for his 
friends. 

"The wrongs of the Quakers is a theme acceptable to 
Mr. Whittier, not only on account of his brotherhood in 
the sect, but more so because he has a brother's love for all 
who suffer and are strong. In his sweet and pathetic poem 
entitled 'Cassandra Southwick,' his sympathy for the 
oppressed seems to have led him to forget that justice is 
due even to the agents of oppression. His account of an 
attempt to sell Cassandra Southwick, to be carried out of 
the country into slavery, as was then practised, is thus 
introduced : — 

' And on his horse, with Rawson, his cruel clerk, at hand. 
Rode dark and haughty Endecott, the ruler of the land. 



Memoir. 131 

And poisoning with Ms evil words the ruler's ready ear, 

The priest leaned o'er his saddle with laugh and scoff and jeer.' 

We have seen that there were many occasions when the 
interest of the Colony and a sense of duty would compel 
Governor Endecott to be grave and stern. But he would 
not have retained, as he did through his long life, the 
respect and confidence of his people if he had been a dark 
demon, with clergymen for counsellors, who were mocking 
fiends. The priest alluded to by the poet must have been 
either John Norton or John Wilson. There is a general 
assent to the testimony of Hubbard, that Norton was ' a 
man of great worth and learning, one that had the tongue 
of the learned, to speak a word in season to the weary 
soul.' And Nathaniel Morton, a contemporary, says: 
'John Wilson was charitable when there were any signs or 
hopes of good, and yet, withal, very zealous against known 
and manifest evils. Very few that ever went out of this 
world were so generally beloved and reverenced as this 
good man.'" 

The foregoing extracts are made a part of this memoir, 
that through them the subject may be allowed in some 
degree to describe himself, and to reveal to the reader some 
of the leading characteristics of his intellectual and moral 
nature. Through them we see Mr. Salisbury as a man of 
decided accomplishments, a lover of classical literature, a 
believer in classical studies, a writer of pure and impressive 
English, a sincere and honest reader of history, an earnest 
champion and defender of historic truth. Independence of 
thought and truthfulness in character and conduct were his 
leading characteristics. His manners were those usually 
ascribed to the "old school." His greeting to all was 
kindly, and in the best sense he may be said to have been 
no "respecter of persons." He was, in age and personal 
appearance, a notable figure in a community of which he 



132 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

may be said to have been, for the latter years of his life, 
the leading citizen. His influence never waned, and was 
always on the side of all good enterprises. He believed 
the highest duty of man to be the overcoming of evil and 
the promotion of good. To all movements for this end 
he offered his hearty and effective co-operation. His 
religion was cheerful and inspiring. He believed in life, 
and that death was but the birth into a larger and fuller 
life. It came to him, as a relief from some measure of 
suffering, but especially from the weariness of physical 
decline, on the 24th of August, 1884. 



PEOCEEDINGS OF OTHER INSTITUTIONS. 



THE PEABODY MUSEUM. 



Salem, June 13, 1885. 

Mr. Stephen Salisbury. 

My Dear Sir: 

At the Annual Meeting of 
the Trustees of the Peabody Museum of American Archee- 
ology and Ethnology, held in the Museum building, Cam- 
bridge (yesterday), Friday, 12 inst., I was directed to 
transmit to you the following extract from the records : 

The President, Mr. Winthrop, says : 

"We miss from our meeting to-day, almost for the first 
time, our late venerable associate, the Hon. Stephen 
Salisbury, one of the original Trustees appointed by Mr. 
Peabody in his "Letter of Gift," dated October 8, 1866. 
Mr. Salisbury had been one of our most devoted members. 
He was our Treasurer for twelve years from our first 
organization, and though he then in 1878, resigned that 
office, he kindly consented to act as Treasurer and to take 
charge of our funds, and even to be the subject of re-elec- 
tion for several years more. He was with us at our visita- 
tion of the Museum last June, and evinced a warm interest 
in the progress and prosperity of our Institution. He died 
at his home in Worcester on the 24th August following, at 
the advanced age of eighty-six years, respected by all who 
knew him. 



136 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

"Before proceeding, however, to other business, the 
Trustees will, I am sure, desire to enter on their records 
some expression of sorrow at the loss and of respect for the 
memory of this valued associate, and I venture to olfer the 
following Resolutions. Unanimously adopted. 

^'•Resolved, That the death of our venerable associate, the 
Hon. Stephen Salisbury, has taken from us one who will 
ever be held in grateful remembrance as the faithful and 
devoted Treasurer of this Institution from its first organiza- 
tion until within three years of his death, and as one of its 
original Trustees, and that we desire to enter upon our 
records the deep sense which we entertain of his virtues 
and accomplishments, his liberality and public spirit, and 
of the sterling qualities of mind and heart which character- 
ized his long and useful life." 

Allow me to tender to you the sympathy of the Board in 
this bereavement, and the trust that you will find consola- 
tion in the testimonials of respect and honor to his memory 
so generally expressed by all with whom he has been 
associated in the various duties of life. 

I am yours respectfully, 

Henry Wheatland, 

Secretary. 



ACTION OF THE ALUMNI OF THE WORCESTER 

COUNTY FREE INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL 

SCIENCE. 



At their twelfth reunion, on Wednesday evening, June 
24, the following resolutions, prepared by Elmer P. 
Howe, Esq., of the Committee of the Alumni, were 
unanimously adopted : — 

"The members of the Alumni Association of the Free' 
Institute, at their annual meeting in 1885, being desirous 
of paying a formal tribute to the memory of the late Hon. 
Stephen Salisbury, LL.D., one of the founders of the Insti- 
tute and its first President, and of expressing their profound 
sympathy at the loss sustained by his family and the 
community, have resolved : — 

"That by his many benefactions, and more by his con- 
stant co-operation with Ichabod Washburn and Dr. Sweetser, 
he was most instrumental in realizing the generous plans 
of John Boynton, and by his devotion, — continued while 
physical strength remained, — to its maintenance and 
development, has increased its efficiency and enlarged its 
sphere of usefulness. 

' ' That we are further indebted to him in that his life was 
that of a true American citizen and gentleman. Endowed 
with wealth, he increased it by judicious care, tempering 
the observance of sound principles of economic science with 
the Christian grace of charity, so that the increase was 
shared both by his neighbors and himself. Constant 
19 



138 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

throughout his life in methodical attention to the business 
of each day, he found time to delve in the lore and 
treasures of antiquity, and to cultivate literature and the 
fine arts. 

"A student, patron and lover of the ancient classics, he 
recognized the need in modern civilization of technical 
education, and few have equalled him in promoting it. 
The best interests of the community, in politics, morals 
and education, were ever sure of his sincere sympathy and 
material aid. He has passed into rest in the fulness of 
years. His life and his works remain as an example and 
inspiration for us, and for succeeding generations." 



FROM THE ADDRESS 

OP THE 

HON. P. EMORY ALDRICH, 



President of the Board of Trustees of the Worcester County Free Institute of 

Industrial Science, at the Commencement Exercises in 

Mechanics Hall, June 25, 1885. 



Although we are highly honored by the presence of 
distinguished scholars, some of whom, besides being 
scholars, hold eminent positions in the public service of 
the State or Nation, and among these we loyally welcome 
the Chief Magistrate of the Commonwealth, who guides the 
ship of State so steadily and governs us so well that we 
have almost forgotten that we are governed at all ; yet, 
with all these auspicious surroundings, there is, to those of 
us, at least, who have been accustomed to attend these 
anniversaries, one conspicuous absence, there is one empty 
chair, there is one vacancy which none of us can ever hope 
adequately to fill. 

The late Honorable Stephen Salisbury, to whom 1 need 
not say allusion is here made, was an early and constant 
friend of the Institute, and its most munificent pecuniary 
benefactor. Having completed his own college course in 
the early part of the present century, when modern science 
was in its infancy, and when, indeed, very little attention 
was given to scientific studies ; yet when the subject of 



140 Memorial of Stephen SalixhurT/. 

scientific and technical education began in recent years to 
attract the attention of men, he showed that he fully com- 
prehended and appreciated its importance, and was ready 
to co-operate with others in its promotion. When, there- 
fore, the project of establishing in Worcester a school of 
instruction in science and its application to the useful arts 
was first proposed, Mr. Salisbury at once discovered the 
value of such an institution to the great industrial and 
educational interests of this community, and he immediately 
became the earnest advocate and most efllicient agent in 
carrying the enterprise into successful execution. It is 
well known to those familiar with the origin of the Free 
Institute that its location in this city was, ]>y its founder 
in his gift of $100,000, made dependent on the fact that 
the citizens of Worcester should furnish the funds necessary 
to purchase a lot and erect thereon a suita])le building or 
buildings for the school. Mr. Salisbury not only gave 
nearly one-third of the $75,000, which was the original 
cost of the building and preparation of the grounds, but he 
also made a free grant of the beautiful site on which the 
Institute now stands, together with several acres of adjoin- 
ing land, furnishing commodious sites for other buildings, 
such as laboratories, a lilirary and ampler halls, which are 
already needed by the Institute for the successful working 
of its various departments. A competent authority on the 
subject of technical schools and technical education has 
said that the centre around which should cluster all the 
teachings of a technical school should be physical and 
chemical laboratories, and the ruling idea of the school 
should he experiment. The only laboratories for the 
departments of physics and chemistry now provided for 



Address. 141 

the Institute are in the same building in which instruction 
is given in all the other departments of the school, and 
they are entirely inadequate for the purposes for which 
they are designed. May we not hope at no distant day, to 
see this imperative necessity of progressive science and art 
provided for, and other walls and towers arising around 
Boynton Hall, until this beautiful eminence so liberally 
granted by Mr. Salisbury shall be crowned with laborato- 
ries, libraries, cabinets, and whatever else may be necessary 
to make it a seat of learning, where not only whatever is 
now known of science or art may be taught, but that it 
may become a place where by original research and discov- 
ery the bounds of knowledge may be enlarged. The lovers 
of fame have sometimes sought favor of the bard to have 
their names embalmed in immortal verse ; but that man wins 
a surer title to immortality who, in this age of marvelous 
progress in scientific knowledge, connects his name with 
some institution designed to advance that knowledge and 
to cultivate the arts upon which all human welfare and 
improvement depend. 

The aggregate of Mr. Salisbury's permanent gifts consti- 
tute one-half or more of the present endowment of the 
Institute, which latter exceeds a half million dollars, and, 
besides these permanent gifts, his liberality was unfailing 
in providing for the ever-recurring temporary pecuniary 
wants of the Institute in its rapid growth and enlargement. 
But great and constant as his liberality in these respects 
was, the personal care and attention he bestowed upon the 
affairs of the school were even more valuable than his 
pecuniary gifts. Generous with his ample fortune in 
aiding to found and maintain educational institutions, he 



142 Memorial of 8tephen Salisbury. 

was also a most intelligent friend &nd patron of every form 
of sound learning. He was himself a scholar, and with 
unclouded intellect, he maintained the tastes and habits of 
a scholar to the latest period of his life, combining in 
extreme old age the maturity of wisdom with the enthusi- 
asm and buoyancy of youth. 

To appreciate the full extent of his services to, and the 
sacrifices he made in behalf of the Institute, it should be 
remembered that he had reached the ripe age of three score 
and ten years, was in the possession of an ample fortune 
and in the enjoyment of a scholarly and elegant leisure, 
when he first assumed the duties of President of the Board 
of Trustees, not of an old and well endowed institution of 
learning, but of a new institution about to enter upon the 
then untried experiment, of combining instruction in science 
in the school, with its practical application in the shop. 
Thus at an age when most men are ready to excuse them- 
selves from undertaking new duties and responsibilities, he 
did not hesitate to identify himself with this novel enter- 
prise in education, and for sixteen years, from 1868 to 
1884, the year of his death, he bestowed upon the afiairs 
of the Institute an amount of labor and attention which can 
never be known except by those who were intimately 
associated with him. He was elected President of the 
Board of Trustees upon its first organization and was con- 
tinued in the office l>y annual election till the time of his 
death. He was rarely, if ever, absent from a meeting of 
the Trustees, and was conscientious and exact in the per- 
formance of every duty pertaining to the position he occu- 
pied. While clear and decided in his views as to policies 
and measures of administration, he was always considerate 



Address. 143 

of the opinions of others ; and his final action on all ques- 
tions was governed by the highest reason and never by 
mere pride of opinion. He was present and presided at 
every annual Commencement of the Institute, and by grace 
of manner and wisdom of speech gave new interest and 
added dignity to the occasion. 

His brief and thoughtful addresses, still fortunately 
preserved, show an entire familiarity with the subject of 
technical education, and a full knowledge of all the elements 
essential to a well-organized technical school. He was one 
of the first to discover the importance of a department of 
language in the Institute, and early endowed a professor- 
ship of modern languages. None knew better than he did 
that language is not only the essential vehicle of communi- 
cating thought, but is the very instrument of thought itself, 
and that a thorough knowledge of language is as essential 
to the engineer and chemist as to the members of what are 
called the learned professions. It would be a grateful task 
to supplement this brief memorial with a full delineation of 
the life and character of the late President of the Institute. 
But the rapidly passing hours of this afternoon must neces- 
sarily be devoted to other purposes. It is, moreover, less 
necessary at this time to enter upon any extended eulogy 
of Mr. Salisbury, for that has already been most admirably 
done by Dr. Peabody, a life-long friend of his, in a memo- 
rial address recently read before another learned society in 
this city, of which Mr. Salisbury had been President during 
a continuous period of thirty years. But there is one other 
fact, not yet mentioned, connected with Mr. Salisbury's 
munificence to the Institute, worthy of special notice, dis- 
playing, as it does, both the wisdom and unselfishness of 



144 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

his conduct. I have ah-eady stated that the original gift of 
Mr. Boynton, whose name will be spoken by the latest 
generations of scholars as that of the founder of the school, 
was $100,000, while the gifts of Mr. Salisl)ury amount to 
more than three times that sum. 

The endowment of the founder, unaccompanied with 
other gifts, would have been sufficient only to establish a 
school of an inferior grade, while Mr. Salisbury, with his 
ample fortune, if he had been ambitious to connect his 
name with a great school of learning, as its founder, might 
without other aid, have established such a school, fully 
equipped to meet the largest demands of modern science 
and art. But instead of doing that, he was willing to build 
on foundations laid by another. And he did this while he 
was yet among the living and able to follow his gifts with 
wise counsel and careful supervision over their appropria- 
tion and expenditure. 



EXTRACTS FROM PRIVATE LETTERS. 



20 



LETTERS. 



Newport, R. I., 19 October, 1884. 
Rev. Dr. A. P. Peabody, 

My Dear Sir: 

My acquaintance with Stephen 
Salisbury, the late President of the American Antiquarian 
Society, began in very early life. As boys, I might almost 
say as children, more than seventy-five years ago we were 
constant playmates, being very near neighbors. Our friend 
was born of parents who had already passed the earliest 
years of mature life. He was their only surviving child, 
and was therefore very carefully and delicately bred. He 
had the great advantage of home life under its purest 
forms, and this reflected itself upon his character from 
childhood to the last. 

I went to Exeter, which divided us for two years. We 
met again in college, where our intimacy ripened, for in our 
first year we were chums. This close relation certainly 
makes me the best witness of his uniform, never-failing 
evenness of temper and fidelity to the duties of college life. 
In the whole year that we were together in the same room 
I never heard him utter an uncivil or rough or fretful or in 
the least degree angry word to any one, or knew him for 
a moment to lose his self-possession. He preferred after 
the freshman year still to live in an apartment outside of 
the college ; I ventured as a sophomore into Massachusetts 
Hall ; but we remained as closely united as before ; and I 



148 Memorial of 8tephen Salislmi-y. 

remember once when he had a slight touch of typhoid 
fever, I for a few days played the part of his nurse and 
companion. During all the four years of his college life 
he remained the same, leading a most regular, studious and 
exemplary life, and I cannot recall that he ever did anything 
that was wrong. 

After we left college many years passed away during 
which we rarely or never saw each other. In later years we 
met repeatedly, and he confided his inmost thoughts to me. 
He had become more conscious of his powers and had the 
clear resolute purpose of employing them. He not only 
acted from a strict sense of duty, but he had consciously 
formed a system of life and plan of efficient action. The 
longer he lived, the more he developed his faculties and 
increased their power. 

The older he grew the freer was his mind ; his under- 
standing more vigorous ; his aims larofer and hio-her : his 
view of the world and his relations to it broader : his will 
more resolute. He is one of the few men whom I have 
known vfho in their progress to old age always grew more 
liberal and more and more wakeful to the duties of life. 
He is gone, and one more tie which liound me to this world 
is broken. He was the last survivor of the friends whom 
I have known from childhood. 

Very truly yours, 

George Bancroft. 

Lowell, August 25, 1884. 

* * * The ncAvs of your father's departure found me 

in my sick chamber. But as long as memory is spared me 

I shall never cease to realize the loss of a friendship so 

entirely unselfish and sincere in all its bearings, which has 



Letters. 149 

been among the few delightful events which a kind Provi- 
dence spared to my sad and weary life. His letters to me 
have been a real benediction, so full of the most charming 
resignation and christian hope. I can write no more, but 
I could not help letting you know, what I, in common with 
all classes of the community, feel. 

J. O. G. 

Lowell, October 1, 1884. 

* * * His last letter was filled with the calmest and 
most cheerful recognition that we had probably met for the 
last time. He wrote of the divine blessedness of death 
before his usefulness was passed. To us, whose associa- 
tions and daily walks and employments have been so 
diverse, he was everything he alwjiys seemed. What 
then must his memory be to his only beloved son, 

J. O. G. 

Terre Haute, Ind., August 25, 1884. 

* * * In your great loss I must claim a share ; a 
tenderer friend than your father I never had nor lost. He 
lived so long and so well, and made himself a part of so 
many other lives, he so thoroughl}^ proved the utmost 
capacity of his life for good, and prepared for the next 
world by making the most of this, that the pain of losing 
him is not unmingled with a certain solemn joy in his 
triumphs over the vexations of life, which make it seem to 
us so well worth while to live. He was one of the few 
men whose character may be fairly summed up in Horace's 

words : 

" Virtus, repulsae nescia sordiclae, 
Intaminatis fnli>-et houoribus." 

C. O. T. 



150 Memorial of 8tepJwn 8alif<hvry. 

Paris, France, August 14, 1884. 

* * * I have been in Worcester so little during your 
life that you can not realize how intimately your father 
was associated with the scenes of my early days, nor know 
how he was honored by all the memliers of my family as a 
christian gentleman. His clear intellect, his fine culture, 
his pure morality, and his courteous demeanor commanded 
our respect and affection. 

L. B. F. 

Hanover, Germany, October 27, 1884. 

* * * Your father was a truly "christian gentle- 
man," a term which in my opinion implies a combination 
of qualities rarely met. In this age of corruption, when 
scandal is so busy with the lives of our public men, it is 
refreshing and encouraging to turn to the contemplation of 
a character so pure, so spotless that malice could find no 
weak point in it. 

L. B. F. 

Worcester, August 25, 1884. 

* * * J need not speak of the void that his loss will 
make in this community, in which he was held in such 
reverent estimation, or of his loss to many friends, who so 
well knew and appreciated his worth, his high unpretending 
virtues, his secret generosity. For myself, he is associated 
with my earliest recollections of Worcester as a school-girl, 
and his kindness, and that of your dear mother whom I 
loved as a sister, w411 be among my latest. 

F. M. H. 



Letters. 151 

New York, August 2Q, 1884. 

* * * But my dear friend there are few sons in this 
world who can be as proud as you to have had such a 
father. His life was pure, his brain active like that of a 
youth's, and his heart full of benevolence. God thought 
it well to lengthen his life. Think of this when sadness 
comes to overwhelm you. 

P. J. J. V. 

Andover, August 27, 1884. 

* * * I shall always carry with me, so long as I can 
think or remember at all, the impression of honesty, good- 
ness and pubhc spirit which he has made upon me. How 
much you have lost ! And yet this is not the christian 
view or word. May you have abundant consolation from 
the Great Source. 

E. C. S. 

West Rindge, N. H., August 29, 1884. 

* * * I need not tell you what sorrow I feel at your 
father's loss. I know how anxious his friends have been of 
late, and could not wish him to linoer on in increasino; 
feebleness and infirmity ; but I hoped his extraordinary 
vigor and determination might enable him to rally as he 
has done so often before. His life was so valuable to the 
community, and the place which he filled was so important, 
that it was hard to reconcile oneself to the thought of his 
being taken away. For myself, I shall never forget the 
kindness and consideration which he always showed to me. 
No minister ever had a more thoughtful or helpful parish- 
ioner. His mere presence in the parish lent dignity and 



152 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

strength to the church, and seemed to secure it against any 

paltry or unworthy ways. It was one of my greatest 

sorrows in leaving Worcester that I had to give up the 

personal relations with him, which I had always prized so 

much more than I was able to tell him. It was never easy 

for any of us to show the appreciation or respect which we 

felt, but I am sure that neither time nor distance has 

lessened my admiration for your father's pure and upright 

character. 

E. H. H. 

Great Bend, Kansas, September 9, 1884. 

* * * Many times while reading the notices of your 

father's life, I have exclaimed to myself, how true I and 

with a feeling of gratification that he was understood so 

well ; and why should he not be, with a character pure and 

open to all and with no faults to hide ? 

S. H. H. 

Paris, France, September 11, 1884. 

* * * Et ille quidem abiit, says Pliny, plenus annis, 

plenus honoribus ; nobis autem triste desiderium reliquit. 

His days were indeed long and full of honor, we shall not 

soon see his like again. 

G. M. L. 

Boston, September 13, 1884. 

* * * I have always felt such deep respect and 

admiration for your father that your loss in him would in 

any case seem to me a peculiarly great one, but your 

unusual companionship must make the change doubly felt 

by you. I wish such wise and good men could live twice 

the allotted time, they can so ill be spared. 

A. B. H. 



Letters. 153 

Merida, Yucatan, September 15, 1884. 

* * * You must feel a groat consolation at the idea 
that his career on earth was so complete, and that his name 
is associated with all that commands respect and true 
admiration. 

D. C. 

Thun, Switzerland, September 20, 1884. 

* * * Your father was a man whom I greatly 
respected ; calm in temperament, high toned in purpose, 
gentle in speech, he always seemed to me the type of a 
perfect gentleman. 

C. K. T. 

Boston, October 20, 1884. 

* * * It will deprive me of the sad pleasure of 
saying to you in person how seriously I mourn for the 
loss we have all sustained in the departure of your honored 
father. I have no thought, my dear sir, that anything that 
I can say will reflect any honor upon his memory, but 
desire, simply in justice to myself in my enforced absence 
at his funeral, that you should know how filial was my 
regard for him and how his many kindnesses glow in my 
memory. 

H. M. D. 

Manchester, September 5, 1884. 

* * * I can remember your father as early as I can 
remember anything, and I was always taught by my tather 
to look upon him with great reverence, for my father had 

21 



154 Memorial of Stephen Salisbury. 

the highest opinion of him, and always said "He is one of 
the few people in this world who never lets outsiders know 
all the good he does." 

E. O. P. S. 

Prag, Austria, 17 September, 1884. 

* * * Er war theils so theilnehmend, so freundlich, 
so nachsichtig, und die Photographie, welche er mir einmal 
schickte, zeigte so einnehmende, milde, schone, geistvoUe 
Ziige, dass wir nicht anders konnten als ihn aus der 
Feme zu lieben und verehren. Die manehen Briefe, die er 
spater oft mit etwas zitternder Hand mir geschriehen hat, 
werde ich stets als werthvollste Reliquien unserer Freund- 
schaft aufbewahren. Halten Sie es nicht fiir eine leere 
Phrase, wenn ich Ihnen mittheile, dass ich diese Zeilen 
unter einem Strome von Thi'anen schreibe, von ThrJinen die 
dem Verluste eines vieljahrigen edeln und aufrichtig 
geliebten und verehrten Freundes gel ten. 

O. K. 

Milton, August 31, 1884. 

* * * Your father has lived to a good old age and 
his life has been an honored and useful one ; and for him- 
self, death comes as a happy release, when compared with 
months or years of prolonged feebleness. I had hoped 
that he and I might meet again in this life. It is several 
years since I saw him, but I shall never forget the pleasant 
intercourse of our earlier life, when I used to visit my kind 
Aunt Salisbury in her pleasant home, in the life-time of 
both your father's parents, to whom at that time he was a 

devoted son. 

A. E. S. 



Letters. 155 

RiEGELSviLLE, Pa., September 2, 1884. 

* * * I have not the pleasure of an acquaintance 
with you, but having been in society with your father in 
my young days, I venture to write to express my sympa- 
thy with your present loneliness and sense of loss. Since 
the days so long past, I had not seen Mr. Salisbury until 
about three or four years ago, when he was so kind as to 
look me up at my daughter's in Boston, with whom I was 
visiting. That pleasant interview, and now again, the 
news of his decease both recalled the years of youth so 
vividly, that my memory brings before me many interesting 
scenes. In all these, I am glad to say, I can fully endorse 
the gratifying remarks made by eminent persons at his 
funeral. He was gentle and modest, and full of all good 
works. This opinion was held by his associates even when 
he was a young man, and it is a delight to me to believe 
that the promises of character were so richly redeemed by 
him. * * * It is a peculiar experience to be aged and 
yet to look back upon the pleasures of youth with a keen 
and quick remembrance. Among all my reminisences, 
there are none more serenely pleasant, than those which 
call up your father as ray friend. 

M. W. D. 

Boston, September 11, 1884. 

* * * I take it for granted we are to have a more 
full account of the life and character of a man so excel- 
lent, and who was so great a blessing to the community 
where he lived. I am not going to write his eulogy, but 
this, however, I may say, the longer I knew him the more 



15fi Memorial of StepJien Snlif^JMri/. 

I became attached to him, and the better I understood his 
superior qualities, which seemed to me not to become 
weaker, but rather to grow stronger with his age. 

S. E. S. 



Philadelphia, Pa., August 25, 1884. 

* * * I lieg to express to you my sympathy for this 
great loss, which will be felt as such by all who are 
interested in the history of our country. Few men of his 
generation equalled your father in the love he had for the 
past and in the activity of his labors to preserve its records. 
Personally, I have vivid and most pleasant recollections of 
the evening I passed with him a few years ago. 

D. G. B. 



Merida de Yucatan, Setiembre 20 de 1884. 

* * * Sabiendo V. lo mucho que le aprecio, por 
simpatia y por deber de gratitud, yd comprendera que ha 
sido una gran pena la que me ha causado, participando 
de ella muy justamente toda mi familia, la noticia de la 
muerte de su venerable Sr. Padre. Por muy natural que 
sea pagar el tributo a la naturaleza, siempre es sensible ver 
que desaparece algun ser querido, y mucho mas lo es sin 
duda, cuando exediendo en meritos y virtudes en grande 
escala, como sucede con su muy respetable Sr. Padre, 
paso al mundo de la verdad, dejando inmenso vacio, casi 
imposible de llenar. 

F. Y. O. 



Letters. 157 

Merida de Yucatan, Setiembre 19 de 1884, 

* * * Aqui en este pobre Yucatan, y especialmente 
en Merida, sabe V. que existen muchas personas que 
profesan a V. una sincera amistad. A todos nos ha causado 
profunda sensacion la inesperada noticia. Yo el ultimo de 
sus amigos, envio a V. En norabre mio y de mi familia 
nuestros sentimientos de afectuosa condolencia, esperando 
que la conformidad cristiana sera el balsamo que traiga a V. 
el consuelo necesario. 

R. G. C. 

Merida de Yucatan, Setiembre 21 de 1884. 

* * * La muerte de un padre es siempre una de las 
mayores desgracias que puede acontecer en el seno de una 
familia, y cuando aquel padre ha sido un fiel y constante 
compaiiero en la vida, como el que V. acaba de perder, 
entonces, la perdida es irreperable, y solo puede calmar el 
dolor, una resignacion verdaderamente cristiana. 

M. J. P. de D. 

Progreso de Yucatan, Setiembre 22 de 1884. 

* * * Considero toda su pena, y quisiera estar alii 
para acompaiiar a V. en esos primeros dias de soledad. 
Desde aqui lo acompano en su dolor, y pido al Ser supremo 
conceda a V. la resignacion que necesita para soportar tan 
sensible perdida. 

C. O. de T. 

Saratoga Springs de N. Y., Agosto 26 de 1884. 

* * * Con las cartas anteriores de V. ya me 
esperaba con temor tan funesto resultado, y yo tenia deseos 
positivos de estar al lado de V. en tan amargos momentos. 



158 Memorial of 8tej)hen Salisbury. 

A Dios le pido lo tenga en sii seno, y que El de :i V. toda 
la conformidad cvistiana tan indispensable en estos trances 
terribles. 

A. A. P. 

WoECESTEK, April 12, 1885. 
* * * The interest your father took in everything 
connected with the permanent improvement of Worcester, 
and the respect he showed to those in positions of responsi- 
bility and public trust will never be forgotten. The 
support and confidence of such men is everything to those 
having in charge for the time being the municipal govern- 
ment, and always has great influence in shaping important 
measures. What has been said of him by the press and 
those intimately connected with him in official positions 
has been so well and so truthfully expressed that I can 
only say that a good man has gone to his reward, and his 
memory will be fragrant for generations in the minds 
of those who will be benefited by his wise and far-seeing- 
benefactions. 

F. H. K. [M. D.] 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



1798. Born at "Worcester, Mass., March 8. 

1808-10. Attended town schools in Worcester. 

1810-13. At Leicester Academy. 

1813. Entered Harvard College. Graduated 1817. 

1817-20. Studied law with Samuel M. Burnside. 

1820. Admitted to the Bar of Worcester County. 

1829-31 . Travelled in Europe for the first time. 

1833. Married Rebekah Scott Dean. 

1837-39, 1844-49. Trustee of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester. 

1838-39. Representative to the General Court. 

1840. Elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society. 

1845-84. President of the Worcester Bank. 

1846-47. State Senator. 

1846-71. President of Worcester County Institution for Savings. 

1847-69. Trustee of Leicester Academy. 

1848. Alderman, first City Government. 

1850. Married Mrs. Nancy Hoard Lincoln. 

1850-51. President of the Worcester and Nashua Railroad Company. 

1858. Travelled in Europe a second time. 

1854-84. President of the American Antiquarian Society. 

1855. Married Mrs. Mary Grosvenor Bangs. 

18 7t^ Degree of LL.D. conferred by Harvard College. 

1858. Travelled in Europe for the third time. 

1858. Elected a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 

1860 also 1872. Presidential Elector. 

1863-65. 1868-72. President of Board of Directors of Free Public 
Library. 

1868-84. President of Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial 
Science. 

1871-83. Overseer of Harvard College. 

1884. Died at Worcester, August 24. 



